Valkyrie
by GreyWolfKnight
Summary: What happens when a BSG nerd gets Self-Inserted into the body of a battlestar commander on the eve of the 2nd Cylon War? Stations of canon get broken and new twists emerge as the human race tried desperately to survive the Cylon onslaught.
1. Chapter 1

It began for me with the blaring of klaxons and the call of a voice saying, "Action stations, action stations! Set Condition One throughout the ship! This is not a drill! Repeat: Action stations, action stations!"

I was lucid when I woke. I knew I was on a battlestar, the Valkyrie. I was her commander and I was needed in the CIC. I threw on my uniform and rushed to the bridge. The marine let me in as soon as he saw me and I said as soon as I emerged, "What've we got?"

My XO, Lt. Colonel Amy Sokolov, looked at me and reported, "Multiple super heavy capital ships with heavy fighter support have just jumped into DRADIS range! The battle group is surrounded on all sides! Fleet command has ordered us to scramble our vipers and prepare for action."

I looked up at the small DRADIS console that dominated the center. I saw the Valkyrie, the Yashuman, and the Bucephalus in the trademark delta formation of a light battlestar group. Our escorts were arrayed around is in a rough sphere. Beyond the sphere of Battlestar Group 41 was dozens upon dozens of Unknown contacts with literal hundreds of fighters surrounding us.

"Cylons! Got to be!" I declared.

"FleetCom agrees," Colonel Sokolov replied.

At that moment one thought went screaming through my mind: The CNP! Baltar Vista was in my ship and about to cripple us! I had to act fast or we would all be dead.

"Disconnect the computer networks!" I yelled with a little too much volume. "Disconnect them right gods damn now!"

The crew seemed a bit confused at my sudden outburst but a stern look from Sokolov set them in motion. I wasn't sure how much good it'd do or how much we'd been de-networked when that red beam swept over BSG 41 and everything went black. The power went out and the emergency lights didn't turn on. We were completely and utterly fracked now.

Except there was a light to hold on to. My brain connected its relative position with my mental map of the CIC as to it being the navigation console. We might still have FTL!

"Mister Burton!" I yelled. "Jump us out!"

"But our FTL computers are still offline, sir! We can't do a blind jump!"

The ship rocked violently, throwing me off my feet. There was a sharp, intense pain in my left arm. I prodded the wound and felt more, intensive pain and a sharp protrusion from my skin. I'd broken my arm badly enough for bone to be poking out!

"It doesn't matter anymore so fracking do it, Lieutenant!" I screamed, quoting Cain's own lines when the topic was brought up on her ship. There was a mechanical sound coming from somewhere near the navigation console and the reverberation of more missiles hitting our hull.

I think it was in that moment, lying in the darkness, when I realized that this wasn't a dream. The pain was too real. Reality was too sharp and clear to be one of my dreams. I was thinking too much for it to be a dream. Most of the time when I dreamed I was just a participant watching the show through my eyes. I had too much control and awareness for this to be anything but reality.

"Frak me!" was the only way I felt I could accurately sum up my situation as the jump drives were charged and we escaped danger, the inside-out feeling of an FTL jump causing me to puke my guts out on the floor.

I was still on the floor, trapped in darkness, when the jump ended. Considering I was still thinking and my arm still hurt like a bitch and a half I had to conclude I was still alive. Mustering up all the will I could, I tried to get up off the ground. White hot pain coursed through my bad arm and I fell back into my puddle of vomit. The pain was so intense I couldn't think or control my body. I was dimly aware of a warm wetness covering my groin and I groaned pathetically.

In retrospect it was a very sobering experience. It reminded me that I wasn't superhuman or anything. Just a regular man trapped in a strange world.

Well, okay, not so strange. I was intimately familiar with Battlestar Galactica but the intent of my statement held true. I wasn't going to be saving the Colonies. Not with just one battlestar that was drifting in space somewhere, crippled by pain in a pool of my own vomit. That wasn't my destiny here.

With nothing better to do I leaned back and tried to relax my body as much as I could, trying to control the pain and perhaps even master it. I achieved nothing more than being another moaning wreck on the ground.

I was dimly aware of the lights coming back on and medics filing into the CIC. One of them came over to me and helped me set my arm. I didn't fight him and couldn't help but cry out as my arm was fixed. I tried to fight off going to the medical bay but my own experience said don't fight with doctors and medics when it came to their instructions. After making sure Colonel Sokolov was up and about (she was) I went to the medbay. I got my arm set into a cast but declined pain killers. I was going to need my brain at one hundred and ten percent for the next forty-eight hours.

"Good news is that we're still in the Colonies," Colonel Sokolov told me. "The bad news is that we're pretty much dead in the water right now. We're fighting fires on decks 17 through 19 and the dorsal railgun batteries are pretty much cut off for now."

I nodded. We were in the CIC, partially cleaned up but still one hundred percent on the ball. The computers were being scrubbed and pieces replaced. It was progress but like Amy said, we were dead in the water.

"At least we're still in one piece," I commented. "Where are we, exactly?"

"We're in the outer reaches of Helios Gamma. We should be safe until we're capable of moving and defending ourselves again."

I nodded. "So how many people did we lose?"

"Last count, two hundred and fifty-two people. Plus eighteen vipers that we launched before the Cylon weapon hit us."

I did some quick and dirty mental math. "We still have almost a thousand crew and forty-two vipers. Let's get a CAP going as soon as possible."

"Already done, sir," Sokolov replied.

I smiled. I had memories, for lack of a better term, of her competence before and she hadn't lost her edge from the attack or the new welt on her brow.

"Okay then. How about what's going on in the Colonies?" I asked.

"Looks like the main fight is at Virgon. Admiral Nagala is in charge. The Cylons are at all our Colonies and dropping nukes like there's no tomorrow."

"Damn," I growled. The Colonies might not be my home but those were forty billion human beings being pointlessly slaughtered by their insane robot creations because God told them to! Or more accurately, because the Cavil line were frakking insane!

"I know," Sokolov said, her voice low and sympathetic.

As much as she meant it, it was impossible for her to really know what was going on in my mind right now. Honestly I was waiting for the signal from Adama to come in of him taking command of the fleet and ordering what was left to rendezvous at Ragnar Anchorage. Then again how could she? Mine might as well be an alien mind compared to hers right now. I already knew the Colonies were doomed and there was nothing to do about it, but I could see it in my crew that they wanted to do something while there was still Colonies left to save.

My crew. The thought felt weird in my mind. My crew. This was the first time I had a moment to really think about my situation. Obviously this was some kind of self-insert situation but not one that left me with many options. If what I suspected was true, the Valkyrie was pretty much an attack gunship meant to slaughter lesser ships and run the frak away from anything that was big enough to put up a fair fight. That was why they operated in pairs or in threes, or at least ran with a heavy tonnage of cruiser support to augment their impressive if low caliber railgun batteries.

So what was my role supposed to be in this scenario? The only answer I could think of was to group up with the Ragtag Fleet and hope we can escape together. Having another battlestar in the RTF would simplify things immensely, but I doubted my presence would be the only butterfly here. Things had to be different. They had to be. Otherwise I would be able to just ride my way up to when we found a dead Earth and colonized the new Earth.

I shook my head and massaged my nose. Too much time to think was a bad thing for me. My imagination was too active to be left unchecked. So I checked over the damage control panel again and concentrated my thoughts on how I was going to make myself useful scrapping toasters.

The Valkyrie was hurting but not terribly so. My quick action had meant her armor had some dents in it but we were otherwise intact. The railguns were still there but unreachable by the gun crews thanks to the fires. So we weren't completely screwed. Between the railguns and the missiles this battlestar was packing, we'd take out a few Basestars before all was said and done.

In a flash of insight I remembered about the CNP. Quickly I asked, "Did we ever find out how the Cylons fragged our computers so badly?"

"We're still working on that," Colonel Sokolov replied.

I nodded. "Okay. In the meantime let's keep the computers de-networked and stay that way. Last thing we need is the Cylons taking over our gun controls when we're in the middle of a fight."

"Sounds like a good plan to me, sir," Sokolov replied.

Out of curiosity I checked my watch, which was now on my right arm. It'd been five and three quarter hours since the attack began.

Too soon for the Cylons to wipe out the fleet. Need to find a real hiding place. Or find a way to meet up with the Galactica. Hmm….

"Colonel," I said abruptly. "I think we should prime up our FTL computers and jump to Ragnar Anchorage. It's much safer there and we should be able to regroup with some of the Fleet there. If I know Commander Adama, he's looking to get the Grand Old Lady rearmed and into the fight."

"Makes sense," Sokolov replied, "but our damage is mostly to our armor and computer systems. Our real time sync is just getting all of the computers de-networked. We should be getting ourselves back into the fight."

She was right. That would be what a real Colonial would be trying to do. Except I wasn't a Colonial. I knew the whole situation and had different aims.

"I know," I replied quietly, "but I'm not going to risk the ship by jumping into the fight over Virgon blind. We're down by half a squadron of vipers and the Cylons have an overwhelming advantage. We should regroup with Fleet elements outside of battle and then decide what we're going to do."

The idea of essentially running and hiding did not sit well with Sokolov and it took more willpower than I care to mention to not knuckle under and tell her everything. There was no way she was going to accept the explanation that I was some nobody who got teleported into the body of a Colonial Officer.

I fixed her with my best Command Look and said in a quiet voice, "Look, it's not the best option but its all we got."

I left it at that and to my eternal thanks to whatever gods were listening, she broke eye contact first.

"I think I know which asteroid Galactica is hanging by," Sokolov said. "Number XRS-70601. We should be able to regroup with the galactica there."

"Sounds like a plan to me," I replied, grateful she wasn't going to push the issue even if I knew I was going to suffer for it later. "Let's go save the Galactica."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Butterflies**

I had to admit, I had a good crew. Maybe every Commander thought that but I knew I did have one. _Valkyrie_ was more or less in fighting shape by the time we were ready to jump to the Galactica's location. We jumped there just in time for the battle between the Cylon Raider squadron and Galactica's ad-hoc air wing. Except this was a full on air wing attacking with cruiser support.

"Frak!" I swore quietly under my breath. "Damned Cylons are everywhere! Action stations! Launch vipers!"

Action stations were ordered and vipers began launching. A battle plan immediately formed in my mind. I didn't know if it was a good plan, but it was the best I had at the moment. Galactica was entirely defenseless without ammunition for her cannons and second could mean the difference between life and death for the _Galactica_. There were two cruisers, medium sized, and a full air wing of Raiders in the way, and I knew _Valkyrie_ could take them. Question was, could I?

"Gunnery, lock main batteries on Cruiser-Alpha and open fire! Helm, put us between the enemy cruisers and the Galactica! I want our flak fields covering her right frakking now! Vipers engage those Raiders to take the pressure off Galactica!"

A chorus of affirmatives filled my gears, competing with the wail of the klaxons for my attention, and the _Valkyrie_ danced to my tune.

The hull began to reverberate as the broadside guns began to fire. The Cylon cruisers were about Valkyrie's size but their backs were to us and they were typical new Cylon fleet ships. Our cannons ripped into the stern of Cruiser-Alpha, chewing her to pieces under a deadly fusilade of railgun shot. The Cylon cruiser collapsed in flames.

"Yes!" I growled under by breath as the contact disappeared from DRADIS. By now all of my Vipers were in the air and engaging. There was still a full Cylon air wing but they were not used to dealing with Colonial Vipers that could shoot back yet. The tide was turning as Valkyrie zoomed past the burning wreckage of Cruiser Alpha and positioned herself between the Galactica and Cruiser-Bravo.

Cruiser-Bravo seemed to be commanded by a smarter toaster because it immediately focused its fire on Valkyrie. Its armament was a mixture of railguns and missiles. _Valkyrie_ shook as enemy railgun shot impacted our armor in a test of endurance. A test that _Valkyrie_ was custom made to win. Three thick armor belts held the line between enemy shot and shell and the interior of my battlestar, where as only one protected the enemy cruiser. The last cylon withered and died under the full broadside potential that _Valkyrie_ could offer.

"That's my girl," I whispered as the Cylon cruiser exploded from touched off munitions and destabilized reactor. Once the cruisers were gone it was a simple matter to clean up the Cylon raiders. They had no concept of retreat in them, the poor bastards, and they died under the coordinated strikes of both battlestars' squadrons.

The last Raider fired off its complement of nukes before it died. One brave viper pilot, probably Starbuck, shot down all but one that hit Galactica on the port launch bay. I gritted my teeth and snarled under my breath. Even if I had saved the Galactica from these new butterflies, there were still some events that couldn't be stopped. As if I needed another frakking reminder of that. Like the Colonies and all forty billions of them being nuked into oblivion wasn't enough of one.

"Colonel, start sending over DC parties and recovering our fighters," I commanded. "I want a full squadron on CAP at all times until we move out."

"Aye aye, sir!" Colonel Sokolov replied.

It was about an hour later that Adama finally called. I tried not to look like a wide eyed fanboy as the grizzled old man said to me, "Valkyrie-Actual, this is Galactica-Actual. Thank you for the assistance."

"My pleasure, Adama," I replied, deciding that simplicity should hide my non-military background. "Is everything all right over there?"

"We had to vent the flight pod but we're otherwise fine."

Vivid images of crewmen and women being sucked into space crossed my eyes and I fought to control myself. In that silence Adama spoke again.

"Commander, where is the rest of your battlestar group?"

"All dead," I replied immediately. "Cylons hacked their computers and shut them down like they just pulled the plug on our entire navy. Only _Valkyrie_ survived. As far as we can tell it's happening all over the Colonies. We're trying to regroup with whatever unengaged ships are out there but we've kept radio silence to avoid attracting Cylon attention."

"In that case welcome to the Seven-Five," Adama said. "Have your ship start transporting over munitions and vipers."

"Very good, sir. I figure a squadron on the _Valkyrie_ and two on _Galactica_ would be optimal. Am I correct in assuming you only have your nukes left?"

"Correct. We're looking for a munitions depot right now."

"Roger. I'll start getting some bullets over to your ship immediately. Valkyrie, out."

With the Galactica safe and no more Cylons to shoot for the time being, I decided to retire to my cabin to get a change of uniform into one that didn't smell of piss and vomit. As I did I checked myself in the mirror. I was a decade or so older than I had been before, about mid thirties or so, but otherwise I was me. Tall, broad, babyfaced with blonde hair going grey and bristly black beard cut close to my face.

I took another moment and, for lack of a better way of explanation, meditated on who I was and where I came from. I "remembered" my name as being Commander Aleksander Wolfkill. I was born on Leonis. My father served in the Cylon War as part of the Royal Navy and Colonial Fleet. I had taken command of _Valkyrie_ seven months ago and was guilty of an uneventful, even drull childhood and career. My promotion had come as part of some kind of political game involved Admiral Cain and her "faction" or posse or whatever the hell you called it, and an unwilling one at that. I had something of a reputation as a Yes Man for Admiral Cain.

I sighed and breathed deeply several times. This was not exactly an optimal situation to be in. I questioned why I was here. What kind of game was this supposed to be? Who put me here? Why?

I suddenly became aware of something around my throat. I checked and found a small silken black cord hanging from which was a pendant in the form of a hammer. Mjolnir. I made the connection immediately. Thor was one of the minor Lords of Kobol. A rival of Zeus for control of Thunder and Lightning. More importantly, he was the chosen Defender of Mankind. Had Thor put me here? If so he really screwed the pooch. I was a fat nerd who couldn't hold a job for more than six months, not a soldier to save mankind. Hell I didn't even believe in the norse gods. The real Aleksander Wolfkill should be here instead of me.

The intercom buzzed. "CIC to Commanding Officer."

I picked up the corded phone and answered, "Yes."

"Sir," Colonel Sokolov said, "Admiral Nagala is dead. The Battlestar _Atlantia_ went down over Virgon less than an hour ago. Commander Adama has taken command of the Fleet."

"Copy," I replied. "I'll be in the CIC in a few minutes."

"Yes, sir."

I shook my head to clear my thoughts and shoved on my jacket. With my cast on I could only have one arm in it and it'd be unbuttoned, but at least I still had it and could wear it, and it didn't smell. Not smelling was always a plus in my book.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Commander and President**

Events proceeded at pace when I returned to the CIC. Adama took command, President Roslin challenged him, Adama thought he lost his son. I remembered his face on my TV screen when I first saw the mini-series so long ago and it took an effort of will to not tell him what had really happened. Instead I played silent, supporting subordinate as we moved out to Ragnar Anchorage.

There were no cylon ships in orbit of the gas giant or in the gaseous planet. I was confident that the events of Leoben would proceed as it did in canon so I had _Valkyrie_ dock with Ragnar to refill our own munition bunkers. I think I almost blew my cover when the civilian fleet arrived. Everyone else was concerned about the large fleet of incoming but I was just standing there all stoic and cool. I even broke into a smile when it was discovered that the Fleet was Colonial, because I realized that when the survivor count was taken the number of survivors would be fifty thousand or so thanks to _Valkyrie's_ presence.

As time wore on and the ammunition was loaded I became slowly but increasingly concerned about how there were no reports coming in that Commander Adama was missing or that some civilian arms dealing smuggler had been found. Was this another change to "canon" like the all out assault on the Galactica? If so it meant that Aaron Doyle would be free to continue his fifth column operations unmolested until the Bio-Cylons were found out!

I was so distracted by the Bio-Cylons the other matter that I was going to have to deal with blindsighted me.

"Commander," Tactical Officer Burton said to me, "the President of the Colonies is requesting to come aboard."

I blinked and looked at Sokolov, who gave a subtle shrug of admitted ignorance.

"Let her aboard," I replied, leaving the CIC to meet her at the airlock. I found myself wishing I could set up some kind of marine honor guard detail but there wasn't time and even if I had the time it didn't feel appropriate given the situation.

"Madam President," I said to her in my best formally respectable voice when we met, "I'm Commander Wolfkill. Welcome aboard the _Valkyrie_."

"Thank you, Commander," President Roslin replied. "If you don't mind I'd like to get right down to the business. Is there anywhere we can talk privately?"

I escorted her to my day cabin, which was also my quarters. Hurray for living on a battlestar built like a submarine. Once we were seated I asked, "What can I do for you, Madam President?"

"I need you to talk to Commander Adama," she sighed. "He's obsessed with fighting the Cylons when we both know the fight is over, and we lost. There are fifty thousand civilians out there and that's all of the human race that's left. Fifty thousand people who need protection from a warship if we're going to be fully self-sufficient. We can't rely on _Galactica_. Can we rely on the _Valkyrie_?"

Crap. Double crap! I'd completely forgotten about that first power struggle between Roslin and Adama. I honestly didn't know how respond in the way that would get all of the ships of the RTF together. If I sided with Adama, currently my direct CO and the supreme commander of the Colonial Fleet, he might feel bold enough to just completely abandon the civilian fleet. If I sided with Roslin, Adama might abandon us anyway because he would think Valkyrie was protected. I didn't think he was the kind of man to try and relieve me or incite a mutiny on my ship for following the orders of the President, who was the lawful Commander-in-Chief if the Colonial Constitution was anything like the US one.

"Madam President," I replied, "I'm not sure how much good I can offer you in this matter. Adama is my superior officer and I can't just order him to change his mind. If he wants to take Galactica on a suicide mission there's nothing I can do to stop him. That said I do acknowledge your presidency and will remain with the civilian fleet and protect it to the best of my ability. I do ask that you don't advertise that fact. It might lead to some awkwardness and trouble down the line."

If anything Rosline seemed surprised at how easily I had fallen into line. I'll admit I was good at doing that: falling into line when push came to shove, and it cost me was my initiative in most matters. Matters like this. With only one squadron and a small gunship of a battlestar I didn't think there was much _Valkyrie_ could do to stop the Cylons except die well. I honestly, dearly hoped that Adama would decide to stay and help us.

"I see," Roslin replied. "I can do that for you, Commander. Thank you for seeing reason."

I clenched my teeth reflexively and my mouth said without warning, "Madam President, just because Adama isn't falling into line doesn't mean he's crazy. He's a soldier, and he's reacting in the best way he can. Don't push him or think you can manipulate him. He'll push back, and he's got a battlestar with a damned loyal crew who'll follow him into hell if he asked them."

"I'll keep that in mind, Commander," Roslin replied. "Thank you for your time."

I escorted the President off my ship and felt a great weight settle on my shoulders. Had I just doomed the human race to be divided and conquered? Had I done the best I could to avoid the potential problems down the line? Only time would give me the answer to that, and sadly I was stuck following linear progression one second at a time.

I was in the CIC when the report came in: Starbucks' scouting run had discovered a battle group of Basestars with heavy fighter support blockading the exit from Ragnar Anchorage. _Galactica_ and _Valkyrie_ were going to hold the door open while the civilian fleet escaped, and then the battlestars would regroup with the civilians and we would all get the hell out of dodge.

I felt that great weight lift off slowly from my shoulders, if only partially. I wasn't going to be stuck protecting the Civilian Fleet all by myself. All I had to worry about now was the Bio-Cylons and the coming chase by the Cylons.

The battle above Ragnar went about as it did in Canon, but it went better I like to think with two battlestars and eighty or so vipers to stand against the Cylons. The part of me that was Aleksander Wolfkill bristled at the thought of putting Valkyrie on the defensive. She was, above all else, an attack ship. She was a hunter who was built to be on the offensive. I bet I could have taken out at least one of those damned basestars if I had been let off the leash, but the rational part of me that was me said I would most likely have been outmaneuvered by the third basestar and had my ship destroyed or at least crippled.

In any case, the line was held. The civilians jumped away. Starbuck pulled her damned crazy stunt with Apollo's viper that got them back aboard safe. _Galactica_ and _Valkyrie_ jumped away safely with the loss of only seventeen vipers.

At the funeral I stood alongside Sokolov and listened to Elosha, the priestess who swore in Roslin and would become her close friend and confidant, give her sermon.

"So say we all," I murmured with the crowd. I didn't see Adama moving as I blinked tears from my eyes. I felt the humiliation of this day as keenly as any one of them. This was still a defeat even if we had escaped with minimal casualties.

"Where now the horse and the rider?" I asked in a shaky, melodic voice. "Where is the horn that was blowing? Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing? Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing? Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?

"They have passed like rain on the mountain, Like a wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning, Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?"

It was only after I finished that I realized I had upstaged Adama's stirring speech. I looked about self consciously and saw my XO looking at me.

"That was beautiful," she said.

"It's not mine," I admitted. "It was composed by a greater man. A good man who dreamed of better days."

Adama took it in stride and shouted, "So say we all!"

"So say we all," we replied.

" _So say we all!"_ he bellowed.

"So say we all!" we returned.

And like that Adama retook the stage and gave his speech. He gave them… Us… the hope of Earth. Personally I hoped there was an Earth out there that could help us. Otherwise we had just decided we would make our last stand there instead of here.

So say we all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: No Rest for the Weary, No Respite for the Wicked**

After the ceremony came the 33 Minute Chase, when the Cylons would appear every half-hour despite how impossible it is to track ships through a jump. Except it didn't happen how I was expecting it.

Initially it was quiet. The Cylons didn't give chase. We went through a few jumps and saw neither hide nor hair of Cylons. I let my guard down and left the initiative to the enemy, and he, or rather she in this case, ran with it. First the water tanks on the _Galactica_ mysterious blew out and all of her water was ejected into space. Before we could properly react to that the Cylons started the 33 Minute Chase.

At the time I reacted like everyone else; namely with panic and confusion. Namely I was panicked over what the actual hell was going on. As far as I could tell at the time canon had effectively thrown itself down the crapper. It was only once I started becoming fatigued after about eighteen hours of this that I started to think. First thing I knew needed to be done was shake the Cylons, then the Fleet could worry about our water situation. Problem was I didn't know if it was the _Olympic Carrier_ that had the Cylon tracking device or whatever it was. So when Adama I had only the most obvious thing to suggest.

"Mister Corinth," I said to my comms officer, "Please get me a line to Galactica Actual."

A line was established. I summoned up all my will and cunning and I tried my best to unfrak the situation.

"Galactica Actual, go," Adama said over the line.

"Sir, this is Valkyrie Actual," I replied. "I've been thinking and the hard math says we can't keep this up. The Cylons are clearly tracking this fleet somehow and we need to do something about it."

"What do you suggest, Commander?" Adama asked.

"We stand and fight," I replied. "We have two battlestars and four squadrons of Vipers, plus raptor gunships. After the next jump I suggest we arm up and fight the Cylons when they jump in. If we can't shake the pursuing fleet then we can at least try to destroy them."

"And what about the civilian fleet?"

"We either have them wait here or jump away to the next set of coordinates. Either way, we're out of water and eventually we'll run out of fuel, so we should attack now while we still have our wits about us."

There was a moment of long silence on the other end of the line, then Adama said, "I'll take it under advisement. In the meantime continue as is."

"Yes, sir," I replied. The argument had been made and that was it. Anything else would just annoy Adama and most likely push him away from my suggestion.

Needless to say I was relieved when Adama ordered us to prepare for combat after the next jump. Both the part of me that was me and the part of me that was Wolfkill. We discussed our battle plan and came to the simple conclusion. Adama would hold back and protect the Fleet while I engaged the Cylons and destroyed their baseships. It was a simple plan, which I figured was good. Simple plans had less things that could go wrong with it. At least, that was the working theory. As the old say goings, no plan survives contact with the enemy.

We divided our vipers and Raptors into two flights. Alpha Flight would consist of two squadrons of vipers and protect Galactica. Bravo Flight would have the remaining Vipers and all of our Raptors, the latter being outfitted for anti-shipping work.

In the CIC I checked my wrist watch again. Fifteen minutes and counting until the Cylons appeared. My viper jocks were in their birds waiting for the order to launch. My Raptors were taking longer than expected. _Galactica's_ raptors were sitting on my flight decks waiting for the launch order.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and refocused. It had only been a day or so since this chase began. I could manage it. I had to. My pilots and crew were relying on me to give them direction and to be their steady rock in this storm. I had to banish my fatigue and focus.

And then I saw her, dripping wet and with too wide eyes, looking at me.

"Boomer?" I said aloud.

"Are you going to save me, Alex?" she asked. "Save my soul from darkness and lift me into the light?"

I rubbed my eyes again and looked. When I opened my eyes she was gone and my XO was looking at me funny.

"Everything alright, sir?" Colonel Sokolov asked me.

"Just dandy, XO," I lied with a smile.

As if I didn't have enough problems to deal with. The pendant of Mjolnir suddenly felt very heavy around my neck.

"Cylon Baseships have just jumped into DRADIS range!" Lt. Burton exclaimed.

"Galactica has given the go order, sir," Petty Officer Corinth reported.

And like that Valkyrie was released and on the warpath.

"Tell Red Team to stick close and protect our flanks, Blue Team to protect Raptors," I ordered. "Designate Basestars Castle One and Two, light Basestar as Tower One. Raptors are to engage Tower One. Bring _Valkyrie_ in for a combat orbit of Tower One and prepare nuclear fire mission at Tower Two. Execute."

The Cylon fleet consisted of two basestars, one light basestar, and two medium cruisers. If we were going to win this we were going to need a quick one-two punch to even the odds. All of that rode on the _Valkyrie. Galactica_ would be taking on the brunt of the enemy firepower, so it was up to us to deal the damage back.

In order to do that we'd done a little math and a lot of calculated risk. It paid off in dividends, because we'd manage to catch the Cylons between our two battlestars. Galactica opened fire first with her heavy battlestar artillery cannons, blasting away one of the cruisers immediately and dealing some minor damage to Tower Two. A few seconds later Valkyrie fired her full broadside into Tower One, lighting fires all along her central spire and along the upper arms.

The Cylons responded immediately with the efficiency of machines, and they reacted exactly how I expected they would. They concentrated all their fire on _Valkyrie_. My ship rumbled as her CIWS worked overtime to intercept all of the incoming missiles, then shook violently as nukes and conventional missiles broke through the flak fields and hit home. The damage control panel went from all green to a lot of yellow as armor was dented and broke in several places along the midsection.

"Missiles locked!" Lt. Burton announced.

"Fire away!" I ordered.

From the forward tubes six missiles launched at Tower Two. They were low yield, 25 kiloton nukes but they were made to penetrate heavily armored hulls and detonate inside. With the thin skin of the new Cylon fleet I only needed one or two to hit to score a fatal wound. Three of the nukes hit home and blasted Tower Two in half.

By now the raptors had closed the range and fired their own salvos of nukes and conventional missiles. The light basestar seemed to shrink in on itself like a dying spider as the munitions gutted her and killed her. Also by now the raiders had redeployed and were now providing an effective anti-missile shield for Tower One and the last remaining cruiser.

With the enemy now reduced in number, _Valkyrie_ and _Galactica_ began to orbit the last remaining Cylon basestar, which continued to pump out hundreds of missiles at us. The yellow panels on my DC board were starting to turn red as the damage began to pile up more and more. I could feel _Valkyrie_ shaking in pain under the bombardment, but I kept us in place. Whatever damage she was taking, the Cylons were sustaining worse.

The last cruiser of the Cylon attack force exploded as the Galactica fired off one of her remaining nukes at the cruiser, blasting the ship into scrap. The last basestar was on fire all across her hull as we kept piling on the damage until she eventually took too much. She jumped away, leaving her raiders to their fate.

"Well I'll be damned, we did it," Sokolov said in a whispered breath to me.

"Guess we're just damned lucky today," I returned. Maybe it was my tired state but my brain suddenly noticed that Colonel Sokolov was a woman, and a beautiful woman at that. Pale skin and copper red hair mixed with vibrant hazel eyes whose intensity was directly tied to her emotions, and she looked very tired but very happy. A small smile crept up at the corners of her mouth, making very interesting things happen to her face.

 _Down boy_. I mentally shook myself into focus and said, "Let's get our vipers back aboard and assess the damage."

In the final assessment there was major damage to Valkyrie's armor and two of her gun turrets were destroyed. Ironically Galactica was better off because she was at the fore instead of flanking. We were down to fifty-seven vipers. I was dearly wishing that whatever god or ROB that had teleported me here had given me a Mercury-class instead of this dinky old Valkyrie, but on the upside the Cylons had gotten a good punch in the nose and were holding off for now. We had the chance we needed to find water.

Then of course _he_ made _his_ presence known.

"Tom Zarek," I muttered. "Just when we thought we were in the clear."

"No kidding," Colonel Sokolov agreed.

We were both running on a definite lack of sleep, as was most of the rest of the crew. We were still on combat alert just in case the Cylons showed up again, but we were slowly cycling the crew through to rest. In the meantime we'd put our scouts to good use looking for fresh water, and we found it buried under the salt ice of a desolate planet. It was the kind of work that would require hard labor, and as expected the thoughts of Adama and Roslin immediately went to the prisoners of the Astral Queen. Lee Adama had gone to offer his "Work towards Freedom" offer on behalf of the president, and had been summarily declined by Tom Zarek on behalf of all the prisoners.

Now the Astral Queen was under the control of the prisoners, and we had to deal with a hostage situation. Oddly enough this time it didn't involve Petty Officer Anastasia "D" Dualla, probably because Presidential Aide Billy was too tired to think with his manhood. Still, there was Cally and Lee Adama who needed rescuing, as well as the still loyal prison guards.

Which was why as soon as word of Zarek reached me I had my entire complement of marines ready for action. Instead of a single small platoon an entire company of 150 marines were ready for boarding action to retake the _Astral Queen_. All that we were waiting for was the go signal from Adama.

"Sir," Lt. Burton said, "Commander Adama has given the Go signal."

"Away marine boarding parties," I ordered, and about seventy marines from the _Galactica_ and the _Valkyrie_ launched in boarding raptors for the Astral Queen. There was no doubt in my mind that this wouldn't end with Zarek's insurrection dealt with. However the question was could I change canon enough to get rid of Zarek right now before he had a chance to start maneuvering into position to disrupt the Fleet in his petty quest for power.

Minutes ticked by slowly and quickly at the same time. Sometimes when I glanced at the clock barely a minute had passed. Other times when I looked a whole five or so had gone by in the blink of an eye.

"You know," I said idly to Sokolov, "I'm really looking forward to getting this cast off. I could use a good hot shower right now."

"That does sound nice," the Colonel returned.

And like that we said no more for several minutes, listening intently for updates from the marine boarding parties.

Finally the call we were looking for came in.

"This is Hitman One-One to Valkyrie and Galactica. The Astral Queen is secure. Minimal casualties."

Through the clapping and hurrahs I asked, "Hit Man One-One, this is Valkyrie Actual. Report the status of Tom Zarek."

"Tom Zarek is KIA, sir. Went down during the fighting attempting to resist. The rest of the prisoners were compliant with the stand down order."

 _Thank frakking Christ,_ I thought. One bullet dodged at last.


	5. Chapter 5

Things were quiet after the 33 Minute Chase and the Zarek Insurrection. By quiet I mean there were no more deviations from canon with one notable exception. Doctor Amarak and the Olympic Carrier survived, and the good doctor came forward with the information to damn Doctor Baltar as being the collaborator who had allowed the Cylons to bypass Colonial defenses.

As much as it would have been cathartic, we didn't throw him out of the airlock. We needed his brain too much. So instead we just incarcerated him in Galactica's bridge and brought him out whenever we needed to pick his brain. By interrogation we managed to learn of the Bio-Cylons and of the Sixes. I argued for full disclosure to the public but was overruled. At least until Aaron Doral tried to suicide bomb the CIC. It was only because the marine guard on station was particularly alert that we managed to avoid a catastrophe, and ending up with someone like me in charge of the military fleet. The "independent tribunal" died a quick death once Adama deemed it a witch hunt, which I again argued against but was shot down.

To be honest I was feeling more than a hit chafed at the collar from the chain of command. I didn't have a way to meaningfully impact the fleet and keep other mistakes and tragedies from happening.

That is, until I remembered one thing. Or rather, one person.

I was in my office when the marine guard knocked at the bulkhead.

"Enter," I said.

In stepped a Number Four Bio-Model. He was in civilian clothes and unchained, because as far as anyone knew he was a normal human being just like them. I knew better, and I knew much, much more.

"Mr. O'Neill!" I said warmly. "Welcome aboard the Battlestar _Valkyrie_."

"Uh, thank you, Commander," the Four said, putting on the appearance of a confused Colonial Fleet medic who didn't know why he was brought into the CO's quarters.

I gestured at the blush chair facing my desk. "Have a seat."

The Cylon agent settled uncomfortably into the chair.

"I'm sorry if I seem brusque," I began, "but I don't believe in beating around the bush so let's get right to business. I know you're a Cylon. Don't bother denying it, because I know. I know you're designated as a Model Four. Your model tends to be doctors and other medical personnel. As far as I know you're the only Number Four in the Fleet and that puts you directly at the command of the Number One Model on the Galactica, whose name is John Cavil."

I lifted my service pistol above the desk and aimed it right at him. "I advise caution and reason."

The Cylon blinked, looking between me and my gun. He said nothing. He just looked at me with unblinking, stone-like eyes.

"I also know you have a wife and adopted daughter, and that you love them. This isn't an inquisition, Mr. O'Neill. This is an intervention."

I lowered the gun away from view, but still held it with my finger around the trigger just in case.

I thought I saw him relaxing a bit once the gun was out of sight, but still he said nothing. I returned the silence.

Eventually he asked, "How did you find out?"

"That is my secret," I replied. "What matters is where we go from here."

"Okay. Where do we go, Commander? Are you going to turn me in so your president can shove me out an airlock?"

"Not on my life, Simon," I replied. "Even if your ressurection network wasn't in position to catch you, I still wouldn't allow it. You are a sapient, free thinking being who has rights that should never be infringed on. You haven't harmed anyone so you don't deserve to die, but one day Cavil will ask you to blow up the Cybele and kill your family."

"How do you know that?" he asked, less as an accusation and more out of sheer curiosity.

"Because," I replied, "it's in his nature. He despises humanity and despises everything about us, down to our very existence. That includes your wife and daughter. I can protect them."

"Can you?" he asked, this time containing a little mockery.

"I can and will, if you work with me," I replied earnestly. "I'll give them both lodgings on my ship and marine protection twenty four-seven. All I ask in return is your cooperation in defending this fleet, which you can do with your knowledge."

"And what if I refuse?" he asked.

"I don't think you will," I bluffed him.

The Four sized me up and said nothing for several minutes, then asked, "What happens to Cavil if I do help you and rat myself and him out."

"I'll suggest that he be incarcerated and interrogated, but I can't do much else. Too far down the food chain and the Galactica isn't my ship."

"My wife is a mechanic on Galactica. She is under his control. What makes you think Adama won't hold on to her and use her as leverage?"

I weighed my options and went with the pragmatic answer, "Honestly? Just my respect for the man and my knowledge of him. As far as he's concerned she'll be another innocent who was duped by the Cylons. Same with her daughter."

"And what about President Roslin?"

Memories of "Athena" Valerii and her daughter flashed through my mind.

"If Roslin goes after them," I growled, "I'll personally take a strike team to liberate them. On that you have my word."

The stone mask faded. Beneath it was a worried man who feared for his life and that of his family.

"Okay, Commander," He said. "I'll play your game for the time being. What do you want me to do?"

In my mind I was smiling. "Something very simple."

A few hours later we were on the Galactica in Adama's Quarters with Adama and Colonel Tigh. Both were silent as I told a slightly false story of our meeting and conversation, with the only real lie in it being that he had come to me in the wake of Doral's suicide bombing attack.

Colonel Tigh fixed me with a dark look as I finished, saying, "I really hope you're lying, Commander Wolfborn."

"I never tell lies when it comes to matters of Fleet Security, Colonel," I replied, stressing the pronunciation of his rank. I might be younger than him by a fair deal but I was still a superior officer and was not about to let this drunken, washed up old soldier browbeat me into silence.

I looked at Adama and said, "It's all true, Adama."

"If this is all true," Adama said, "Why isn't he in chains?"

"It'd draw too much suspicion," I replied, "and he's not a prisoner. He hasn't committed any acts of sabotage against this fleet and came to us seeking help. As far as I'm concerned he's a defector."

"Why is suspicion a problem?"

"Because there's two other Cylons still on Galactica," I replied. "One is your Chaplain, John Cavil, and the other is Lieutenant Boomer."

If I wasn't in hot water before I was now.

"Where the hell are you getting your intel, Commander?" Tigh demanded.

"From Mr. O'Neill," I replied. "He told me all about their insertion and orders. Boomer is an unwitting double agent and Cavil is her handler in a very literal sense. She has no idea who she really is. Mr. O'Neill here can 'disarm' her and render her harmless."

Adama and Tigh shared a look. Tigh's opinion was written all over his face. Adama was unreadable. He grabbed the corded phone from its mount and said into it, "Commander to CIC, please send Lt. Valerii to my quarters immediately."

When Boomer arrived she seemed a bit confused by the presence of myself and Tight right up until she fixed eyes on Simon.

"Open Command Interface," he said. "Keyword: automatonophobia."

Boomer went blank eyed and said in a disturbingly flat monotone, "Interface open."

"What the hell?" Tigh swore.

"Hush!" I shushed him.

Simon proceeded to spend the next half hour in what amounted to careful verbal surgery as he disabled the Cylon Saboteur side of her while letting her keep her memories and personality. It was… indescribable to watch. It was a stark reminder of the power of words.

"There, I'm done," Simon said eventually. "Close Command Interface. Keyword: automatonophobia."

Boomer blinked and looked around her immediate surroundings, then focused on Adama. She looked like the kid who got caught with her hand in the cookie jar except a hundred times worse.

"Commander," she said.

"Boomer, are you a Cylon?" Adama asked.

Boomer looked around helplessly. I looked her right in the eyes and said, "It's okay, Boomer. Just tell the truth."

She looked at me, then back at Adama. She said, "Yes, sir."

"Have you committed any acts of sabotage against this fleet?"

"I… Yes, sir. I blew up the water tanks on Galactica and almost blew up my own raptor to prevent the fleet from finding water."

"Almost?" Tigh asked.

"I… managed to resist the urge to blow up the raptor," Boomer replied, "and I disposed of the bomb after I returned to Galactica."

"Okay, Boomer. Here's how it's going happen. I'm taking you off flight duty and confining you to quarters for the time being."

"Are you going to throw me out the airlock, sir?" Valerii asked, tears starting to well up in her eyes.

"No, we're not doing that," Adama replied. "However until we can be certain you're not a threat, we're going to put you off the board. Can you walk yourself to your quarters?"

Valerii left the Commander's quarters, quickly and sloppily wiping her tears away. Adama looked to Colonel Tigh and said, "Colonel, take a marine strike team to the chapel and take Chaplain Cavil into custody."

"Yes, sir," Tigh replied, leaving it down to just me and Adama now, with Simon doing his best to avoid attention.

"Any other bombshells you care to drop?" Adama asked me.

"I want to transfer a mechanic and her child to the _Valkyrie_. Her name is Gianna O'Neill and the child is on the Cybele. They're Simon's family and we need to get them out of reach of any other Cylons that are in the fleet."

"Okay, I'll allow it," Adama said. "Simon and his family are your responsibility."

"Of course, sir," I replied stiffly. "I was never under any impression otherwise."

I left the Galactica with Simon in tow, feeling pretty pleased with myself. If only I knew what was waiting for me at Kobol.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Kobol Pt. 1**

The events leading up to our arrival at Kobol were at times both frustrating and invigorating. For one, I wasn't able to stop Ellen Tigh from showing up and spreading her poison about. I was convinced she was a Cylon until the detector Doctor Amarak was working on proved she wasn't, which perplexed me to no end. I was so certain by the way she dressed and by her antics that she was a Cylon. I guess in the end the lesson to be learned is that not everyone who is a toxic cunt is a Cylon.

In more positive news, with the help of Simon O'Neill we managed to nail almost every cylon in the fleet, with detailed descriptions of every model and what their roles were letting us home in on them with only a gentle amount of pushing from me. In the end we got seven Cylons in the Galactica's brig, including Cavil but not including Boomer. As far as I could tell she remained in Adama's good graces but was still held with a reasonable amount of suspicion, but at least she wasn't going to end up plugging the old man once we reached Kobol.

Kobol. The anticipation for the arrival at the Colonial homeworld was something I felt very keenly because of the events that surrounded it. The desposement of Roslin. The near-assassination of Adama. The declaration of martial law by Colonel Tigh. Three major events that could have spelt the doom for mankind if it had gone any worse than it already did. My efforts thus far had been to defuse the ticking timebombs before they went off.

This probably makes me sound like I was some kind of mastermind plotting everything and manipulating events like it was a game of chess. The honest truth was that I was pretty much playing things by ear without much of a plan besides a goal: save humanity. I did take the occasional break to take care of ship affairs on the _Valkyrie_ , eat and sleep, and even took a few moments to have some leisure. Said leisure time was pretty much attempting to reassemble some of Tolkien's poems. The March of the Ents and The Song of Durin were among my first attempts. Honestly those two were the ones I really knew well and I eventually devolved into writing down the lyrics to songs I listened to without end before becoming a battlestar commander.

I was in the middle of attempting to scribble down the lyrics to Iron Maiden's Fear of the Dark when the comms built into the bulkhead started to beep and buzz.

"Wolfkill, go," I said into the phone.

"Sir," Lieutenant Hal Burton, my tactical officer, said, "Galactica's recon raptor just jumped back. They've found a habitable planet at the latest coordinates."

Kobol. Has to be.

"A habitable planet?" I repeated. "Any details?"

"Lots of orbital debris and it looks like there's more debris scattered about the solar system. The planet also seems to be in the middle of a nuclear winter."

"I'll be right there," I replied.

I rose up to stand and in front of me was Boomer, in her flight suit and soaking wet.

"Oh shit not again," I gasped.

"Don't go to Kobol," Boomer. "Only darkness waits there. Don't go to Kobol."

I blinked and she was gone.

I sighed, "Fuck me."

In the CIC I was able to go over the readings of the recon raptor myself. The planet looked like it had been in the middle of a war. A war that everyone involved lost. The pockmarks of nuclear craters and the broken hulls of spaceships could be seen everywhere the raptor's camera had swept. I was sure it was Kobol because it wouldn't make sense for there to be this random graveyard of a solar system in our path, and the Opera House in the City of the Gods had been spotted by the recon raptor.

"Sir," Petty Officer Corinth, my Comm Officer said. "Commander Adama is on the line."

I picked up the corded phone and said, "Valkyrie-Actual, go."

"Commander," Adama's grizzled voice said. "I assume you've had a chance to go over the findings?"

"Yes sir I was just looking at them," I replied.

"Good. I want to send Valkyrie on a recon run to see what there is to see. Find out all you can about the planet and what it can offer us. Galactica and the rest of the Fleet will hold position out here to hide from the Cylons. If you run into Cylons, jump back to the Fleet. Keep me up to date on your findings."

"Yes, sir!" I replied. This was exactly what I was hoping for. I could investigate the planet without Roslin getting involved or worrying about the RTF being caught in a Cylon ambush. Everything seemed to be going my way. If only…

 _Valkyrie_ arrived in the Kobol System "above" the ecliptic plane with the planet Kobol only a few light seconds distance. I set us to work immediately by deploying all of Valkyrie's Raptors and shuttles to commence surveys of the planet below and of the more concentrated clumps of wreckage.

"Do your people know anything about Kobol?" I asked Simon in his quarters. He and his family had been moved into the cramped guest quarters that Valkyrie boasted for VIP guests, though why someone would want to visit a lowly Valkyrie-class was a mystery to me. Said quarters were under guard by marines at all times for their own protection. Currently it was just me and him, as his wife was at work in the launch bay and his daughter was at school on the passenger liner _Viridian Sunrise_.

"Only that it exists," Simon said. "Our long range scout ships found it a few years ago. We did a quick survey for anything interesting then left."

"Did you find anything interesting?" I pressed.

Simon pursed his lips and shook his head, "No. Just lots of ruined cities and orbital debris. However we did find a large station construct in the outer system that we suspected had launched the _Galleon_ and the _Yggdrasil_."

"Yggdrasil?" I repeated.

"The ship that carried the Thirteenth Tribe to Earth," Simon replied. "I'm surprised you didn't know about it. It's in the Sacred Scrolls."

"I was never very religious," I replied.

"So why do you have the Hammer of Thor around your neck?"

The presence of the pendant suddenly became very heavy around my neck.

"Because," I replied out of reflex, then said, "because I do believe in the Gods enough to hope that they are watching over us. Thor is supposed to be the Lord charged with protecting mankind. So it makes sense for a colonial warrior to carry his sigil."

"Ah, I see," Simon said. "You humans are so funny about your religion. I mean it's obviously all a fictionalized retelling of past events as soon through the point of view of others, yet you worship these people are gods and kill in their name. You define your whole lives around them!"

"Not all of us," I said defensively, "and I never said humans made sense. We're all the product of our upbringings and the influences of our environment. Besides, I wouldn't say you guys are any more sane seeing as you believe in a One True God who commanded you kill all the humans."

I paused, then asked, "Have you ever considered why you worship this God and why he demands blood like this?"

Simon looked like he was about to say something, then stopped.

I pressed further, twisting the knife. "You defined your entire civilization around around killing. Around bloodshed and war. All the while your ruling class look and act like humans with all the human frailties and flaws, and yet you're supposed to be superior morally. How does that make any sense?"

Simon seemed down right uncomfortable in his chair. He replied, "I don't know. I never really thought about it before."

I tried to sound contrite and smiled slightly, saying, "Well, maybe it's time? Lords know we're not perfect ourselves. Maybe nobody is perfect in this universe?"

"Maybe," Simon said.

My radio buzzed, and I answered it.

"Wolfkill, go," I said.

"Sir," Tactical Officer Burton said. "A raptor just jumped in from Galactica. They… They said…"

"Spit it out, son," I said gently but firmly. "What's going on with the Fleet?"

"Sir, they say the Pegasus is with them now. Admiral Cain is alive!"

 **Chapter 6: Kobol Pt. 2**

My blood chilled and every hair rose to standing. I hadn't planned on _Pegasus_ arriving this early. Hell I had no plan at all how to deal with Cain and her madness.

"I see," I said in a quiet, almost dead voice. "Anything else?"

"Yeah. She has her own fleet with her," Burton replied. "A lot of warships plus Pegasus has a lot of civilians aboard her."

"Very good. Carry on."

I took off the radio and told my Cylon guest what had happened.

"Oh, so she's arrived at last," Simon said. "I'd heard that there was a battlestar causing trouble in our ranks but I didn't know it was the Pegasus."

"You knew and didn't tell me?!" I demanded.

"You never asked," Simon said simply. Never before did I want to choke-a-bitch more than I did right now. He added, "Besides, I don't have my communicator anymore so I couldn't confirm it."

"Is there anything else you're not telling me?" I asked him, making my displeasure clear.

"No," Simon replied.

"I hope so, because how useful you are to me could be the difference between this and a firing squad."

"Threats are beneath you, Wolfkill," Simon tut-tutted.

"That wasn't a threat," I replied evenly. "That was a remark about about what might happen if Admiral Cain thinks you're a liability."

I left Simon with that and returned to the CIC. I wasn't really sure what I was doing at this point. My brain was racing with thoughts and calculations. I hadn't planned for Cain showing up so soon. What was I going to do? What _could_ I do? As if I wasn't on the bottom of the totem pole already! Once again, I was going to have to be reactionary again and hope that I could make a difference again.

Eight days passed. In that time I learned some more things about Kobol and the new additions to the Fleet.

I guess I should start with the Fleet first. Besides Pegasus and Galactica we now had a handful of warships to defend the Fleet with. First there was the _Valiant_ , an Artemis-class Missile Cruiser under the command of Major Anastasia Longstreet carrying everything from flechette missiles to plasma warheads to nukes. She had managed to escape the Cylon onslaught by virtue of being an unappetizing target when compared to the Mercury-class Heavy Battlestar she had been escorting.

Then there was the _Phantasm_ , an Orion-class Stealth Frigate who had survived by virtue of being on deep assignment hunting down the last major pirate gang in the Colonies. I'd be lying if I said I didn't begrudge their survival. However she had nukes and was, according to Colonel Sokolov, a damned fine stealth ship.

Finally there were two Defender-class Destroyers: The _Concordia_ and the _Snarler_. Both had come from the same battle group, whose commodore had ordered a retreat as soon as the Cylons has appeared.

All together we had a lopsided but potent combat force. The Fleet was definitely safer for their inclusion.

In the meantime I started voraciously reading the Sacred Scrolls, particularly the sections related to Kobol and the Exodus. Yes there was the Pythian Prophecy but there were other passages. The ones that caught my eye was the stories of the Lord called Odin, who wandered Kobol to gather up the combined knowledge of Gods and Men to preserve it from the fires of armageddon. He gathered it all up and placed it in a series of vaults all through the land (aka the solar system), charging his Valkyries to guard them.

As I read about these Vaults, my first thoughts were of the vaults from the 2018 release of God of War. Then it occured to me that if the Arrow of Apollo and the Tomb of Athena could be possible, then these Vaults could be real too!

Taking my own initiative I had my raptors start searching the solar system for signs of these vaults. In the process we learned that was a lot harder than you'd think. Nearly every asteroid and moon with talking about in this solar system had been colonized or mined or otherwise visited by humankind during Kobol's hayday. Searching the whole system would take years, so I did my best to refine the search based on what the Scrolls said.

I made the mistake of mentioning this in my reports. This ended up being what would break up the Rag-Tag Fleet.

It started with the _Valkyrie_ being recalled back to the Fleet. I hated that order. I wanted to disobey or argue it. I knew the Vaults existed and we needed to find it, but trying to ignore orders would just get me relieved of command. So I followed orders and returned to the Fleet.

"Now that's a wholesome sight," Colonel Sokolov said with a happy smile on her face as she looked up at the DRADIS console. On the repeater screens was the Pegasus and the rest of what remained of the Colonial Fleet.

"Yeah," I sighed, resisting the urge to pout. I guess I succeeded at that but I was still disappointed by the recall. I felt defeated and frustrated. The answer to the survival of humanity was Earth and I was going in the exact opposite direction. I wondered if this was how Roslin felt when she was trying to convince Adama to get the Arrow of Apollo.

Petty Officer Corinth said, "Commander, _Pegasus_ welcomes _Valkyrie_ back to the Colonial Fleet. Your presence is requested on the _Pegasus_ at eighteen hundred hours."

"Tell em I'll be there," I replied. I checked my wrist watch. 18:00 hours was coming up pretty damn quick. I figured I had enough time to shower, shave, and get my Dress Blues on. I wondered what the Berserker wanted and was dead certain I wouldn't like it.

Aboard Pegasus I was ushered into Admiral Cain's quarters where I a gaggle of majors, colonels, and a commander all in the middle of what was probably a pre-briefing mixer with no admiral anywhere to be seen.

"Hello again, Commander," I said to Adama respectfully.

"Hello again, Commander," Adama echoed me. "How was Kobol?"

"Breathtaking," I replied, answering truthfully. "It was like looking a twilight view of hell. No flames and brimstone, just lots of graves and empty wreckage of civilization."

"Well I'm sure you're happy to be back," Adama said.

"Not really," I replied, also truthfully. "I'm dead certain that the Odin Vaults are our best chance of finding Earth. I wish I could have found one before coming back."

Adama said nothing and took a sip from his wine glass. I had a glass full of water in my hand as wine was never my forte. I was a bit American in my preferences for light beer and hard cider.

"So what's been happening since I was gone?"

"Nothing of significance," Adama replied, and left it at that.

I left it at that as well and wondered if the President had tried to get him to go back to the Colonies to get the Arrow of Apollo. Chances are she probably had the chance to do it once and then Cain showed up. It didn't help that we didn't have the Cylon Raider because we had stopped and fought the Cylons, which meant people were less worn out and maintenance hadn't lapsed, meaning that recon drone never fell out of its straps and killed most of Galactica's pilots, requiring Starbuck to teach a whole bunch of new nuggets.

At that thought I wondered if Kat and Hotdog and the rest were still going to become Viper pilots now that Pegasus was here to replace our losses.

I was still wondering it when Admiral Cain arrived. Her hair was still curled like it was in Razor and Kendra Shaw was in her shadow. It was at that point I realized that I hadn't seen Colonel Belzen in this whole time and I wondered if Cain really did execute him in this timeline.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she began, "welcome to the Battlestar Pegasus. This is the first time we've all met like this, and I'm glad to be here today. I think it's good for a fleet's command company to meet and see each other face to face."

There was a murmur of agreement between the gathered officers, which I echoed.

"We few have a terrible burden placed on us. We represent the last of the Colonial Fleet. We are the last line of defense between humanity and extinction. The Cylons think they've won and that we're running scared. They're wrong. Today is the first day of our counter attack. Starting today there will be no step taken backwards. No mercy given or asked for. There will be no stopping until we've killed every last Cylon bastard in the universe!"

"So say we all!" Kendra Shaw said proudly.

"So say we all!" the rest of us returned. I barely managed to keep up. I was shocked. I don't know why but I was. Maybe it was out of disbelief that Cain was going to take eight warships and declare war on the entire Cylon Empire!

"I already have our first target prepared," Cain told us. "This information is considered Priority Kobol, top secret. Nothing leaves this room. Major Shaw, if you will."

 _Major_ Shaw stepped forward and passed out a handful of photo printouts that'd obviously been taken from up close by a powerful camera. I recognized the ship immediately.

"The _Pegasus_ managed to find _Galactica's_ fleet because we were training a Cylon Fleet. In that fleet is three Basestars, four heavy cruisers, seven frigates, and one unknown. Thanks to the interrogation of our Cylon prisoners we've identified this as a 'Resurrection Ship.' It is source of their immortality. We're going to destroy it. We're going to blow it and every ship in their fleet into Tartarus, then keep going with every Cylon ship and station from here to the Colonies. That is our end goal, people: The liberation of the Colonies."

 _Oh shit_ , I thought. _We're all doomed._


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: The Choice**

"Okay," Colonel Amy Sokolov said. "How are we doomed?"

We were sitting in my cramped quarters aboard the _Valkyrie_ sharing a drink. It was a few hours after the meeting with Cain on the _Pegasus_. I needed someone to confide in, and Colonel Sokolov was the best I had.

"We don't have the resources to fight a war against the Cylons!" I said, somewhat exasperated. "If we try we're just going to destroy ourselves! We'll be doing the Cylons' job for them! We'll be found, cut off, and slaughtered!"

"How do you know that?" Sokolov challenged me.

"Because it makes sense!" I pressed. "The Cylons have our outnumbered at least… At least forty to one. They slaughtered the Colonial Fleet while barely taking any losses."

"Are you really sure about that?" Sokolov asked me. "They only sent a pair of basestars and a few escorts at us when they were first chasing us. Besides, we saw _Pegasus_ survived. There could be other survivors and the Cylons are spread thin fighting them. Us striking back now could be the thing that breaks the Cylons' back!"

"Maybe," I admitted. "But I don't think it's possible."

"Then tell the Admiral that," Sokolov said.

At that I remained silent. If I understood military law correctly it was within my rights as a subordinate to privately express my concerns about the decisions my superior was making, but in the end I was expected to follow my superior's orders, but I knew what Cain was like. At least how she was in canon. In this new reality Belzen could be alive for all I knew! I hadn't asked or checked. I was too shocked by the battle plan. What I did know was that apparently she had stripped the civilian fleet she'd encountered, but took on all the civilians. Whether I was dealing with Admiral Cain or Psychopath Cain was up in the air.

"Have you been in contact with Pegasus's XO?" I asked, going off a hunch.

"A little bit, off and on over official business like resupply and how many vipers we have," Sokolov replied.

"Do you remember his name?" I asked again, trying to phrase it like it was escaping my memory.

"I don't recall."

 _Damn. Damn damn damn!_

"I see. Thank you for your time, Colonel," I said.

"Any time, Commander."

I was restless in my sleep that night. I got maybe four or five hours of sleep total. I tried to stave the fatigue off with coffee and working out.

Working out in my new body was weird. It was older than my original body, yes, but it was in good shape and had better tolerances. It was an interesting experiment to see how many pounds, or kilos since the Colonies used the metric system, I could press and finding my new limits.

I was drying off from a post-workout shower when my radio buzzed.

"Wolfkill," I said into it.

Sokolov's voice said, "Sir, the President of the Colonies is here to see you."

 _Fuck! What does she want?_

"I see," I replied. "Can you give me five minutes, then I'll see her."

"You have it, Commander."

"Thank you."

I put down the radio and hastily finished drying myself and dressed. I even managed to squeeze in a quick brushing of my teeth before President Roslin came into my small cabin.

"Madam President," I said. "It's an honor to have you aboard again. I trust all is well on Colonial One?"

"Thank you, Commander, but all is not well," she said.

"I see. Please, have a seat." I gestured to my folding desk table and we both sat down. "What exactly is wrong?"

"I've heard from Admiral Cain that she intends to take our warships on the attack," Roslin said, "and take us back to the Colonies."

"Yes that's true," I replied.

"Such an act would be foolhardy at best. In our situation it's suicidal. However despite my objections, Admiral Cain seems intent on leading this fleet into destruction. She has ignored the chain of command and effectively staged a military coup."

"That is a harsh accusation, Madam President," I said carefully.

"It's the truth. She told me herself that military matters must come first. Vital food and medical supplies that the Fleet needs to survive are being withheld for the military! The civilian fleet is essentially just a supply depot for her to pillage at will!"

I knew a speech when I heard one. I asked, "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Commander, you're the only officer I can trust with this. I intend to lead the Fleet back to Kobol and leave before Cain strips it down for parts and its people are all press-ganged into being soldiers. I need your battlestar with us if we're going to be self-sufficient."

"Now you're the one talking about treason," I said heatedly and without thinking. "You're asking me and my crew to mutiny. That's what it is. Mutiny! Leave my brothers and sisters-in-arms hanging when they need us the most. You want to lead the Fleet to a place the Cylons know exist and are probably patrolling now!"

"You didn't encounter any Cylons while you were there. If they weren't there then they're not there now," Roslin argued. "And Admiral Cain has already committed treason by ignoring presidential orders to lead her own personal war of revenge!"

I couldn't argued against it because I had been thinking the exact same thing not too long ago. I was silent and Roslin pressed in.

"You know I'm telling the truth, Commander," she said. "Help me save humanity! I've read your reports about the Odin Vaults. I believe they exist too, but we need to go back to Kobol to find them. If we find them, we might find Earth too."

"You're asking me to betray my superiors," I said darkly.

"I'm asking you to save mankind," she returned, sharply.

A moment of pregnant silence hung over us. We had both said our pieces and now it was a contest of wills. I had always considered myself a stubborn, thick headed lout when I wanted to be, but this time I didn't know. There was so much at stake. Too much. I couldn't make this kind of decision on a whim and said so.

"I understand that I'm putting a lot of pressure on you." Roslin said in her teacher voice, "but this is the best for all of mankind. Earth is our destination, and Kobol is our key to getting there. I trust you to make the right decision. Just like I'm trusting you with this information."

With that she left. Left me to stew in my thoughts. Differing opinions fought a nuclear war in my mind. Was this the Stations of Canon reasserting itself on me despite all of my best efforts? Was the splitting of the RTF some preordained thing that was meant to happen just because Pythia said it would? If so than fuck that! I wasn't going to let fate or Roslin endanger the fleet!

I reached for the radio but stopped. There was that voice that asked what if she was right? What if Cain really was insane and leading us all to death? What if this was going to happen regardless of what I decided and we were all just screwed anyway?

No. We couldn't be. It wouldn't make sense for me to be here and all this to happen just for it to end in fire. Fate, for lack of a better term, had placed the decision before me. Follow Roslin or follow Cain. I was going to have to make a decision and fast, or have it made for me.

So I made my choice.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Damned If You Do...**

I was sitting in Commander Adama's quarters aboard the Galactica, tea cup in hand. It was a very nice set of china (or whatever the Colonial word for nice porcelain was) and as I held it I became increasingly conscious of the slight shake in my hands as I told Adama the story of the President's visit.

Of all the questions I was expecting him to ask me, he asked me, "So what do you plan to do about it?"

I was caught a little off guard by the question. It wasn't what I was expecting. To be honest I didn't know what I was expecting. I answered to the best of my ability, saying, "I intend to side with the President of the Colonies and go to Kobol with her."

"And what about your crew?" he asked. "Are your people going to side with you?"

That was a damn good question. I hadn't really thought about them. What would be their reaction to all this? To their commander dragging them away from the safety of the Colonial Fleet. Even if Cain was leading us into danger there was still safety to be had under the aegis of the _Pegasus_.

"I don't know," I answered truthfully. "I hope they will."

"Hope," Adama repeated. "Not a lot of hope these days. That's a big thing to hope for. From what I've heard you've been reclusive and insular. Not a good combination for a Commander to have in a time like this."

"I've been digging into the old stories about Kobol," I replied, wondering how to couch my words so I didn't sound like a religious nut like Roslin. "My faith tends to be very obsessed with the End of the World and the cycle of things. With the Cylons just rolling over us and reducing us to this fleet of ships I've been looking for an answer to the question, 'why?'"

Adama nodded. "And what have you found by now?"

"Nothing good. It says that everything will end when the last of the people are living like animals. The gods will ride down from the heavens to clash with evil and lose. Honestly it's a pretty frakking dark religion to be a part of."

There was a moment of silence, and I asked, "What about you, Commander?"

"What about me?"

"What are you going to do?" I asked him. "You going to report me to the admiral?"

"I don't know yet," he replied

"Then will you join me?"

"I don't know that either," Adama said. "I don't like that the president seems to be shopping for loyal officers."

"Can you blame her? When the supposed head of the Colonial military has decided to go rogue, what can you do?"

"There's always the third option."

I saw no third option here, but the way Commander Adama spoke made me think it was as obvious as all hell. I felt more than a little stupid as I asked, "What's that?"

"Talk to Admiral Cain," he replied. "Reason with her. I think she'll listen to one of her subordinates. Especially one of her two remaining battlestar commanders."

Frak. I really didn't want to walk into the lion's den and just let her execute me if she decided to just cut out the middleman and assume I was a traitor or something. I replayed the encounter between Cain and her XO. That was in the heat of the moment and her XO had seemed to go about it in the worst way possible. Talking to her in her quarters before the battle might work. It all depended on one thing though.

"You don't happen to remember Cain's XO's name do you?"

"Colonel Belzen. Why?" Adama replied with a hint of curiosity.

I breathed an inward sigh of relief. I said. "Okay. I'll see if I can talk to her. Though it'd be a lot stronger if you went with me."

"Assuming I agreed with you, Commander."

Frak. Was Adama always this ready to fence verbally?

"I do," I replied. "I followed your reputation closely when I was at the academy. I believe that you are an honorable man and one who believes that the civil authority should always be superior to military authority. Plus if we can keep the fleet together than humanity stands a better chance of survival. Cain's battle group can't fight the whole war by itself. Valkyrie can't stand up to one basestar by herself, let alone protect the fleet."

Adama said nothing for a short moment. Then he looked at me and fixed me with that trademark Adama Stare. I didn't turn away or blink. I stared him down, my brown eyes to his piercing baby blues.

"Okay. I'll go with you," he said.

Thank frakking christ. Maybe I did have a chance at saving this fleet after all.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: ...Damned If You Don't**

Boarding the _Pegasus_ felt like walking into the mouth of hell. It was a cold ship with a cold crew. They paid the differenced owed to myself and Adama as superior officers but I felt the questioning aura they gave off. Why were we here? To be honest even I didn't like the answer to their unspoken question. This was stupid. This was suicidal! Why the hell was I here?

I was still asking myself that question as we were ushered into the Admiral's quarters and were met by Admiral Cain herself. At the moment she seemed… amicable. Amicable but carefully neutral.

"Gentlemen," she said. "Welcome aboard _Pegasus_. What can I do for you?"

I didn't have to look at Adama to know what he was thinking. He was going to have me take the lead on this. I took a silent breath and calmed my nerves. The last thing I wanted to do was appear weak and timid in front of Cain. But at the same time I was going to have to work at not coming off as confrontational. It was going to be a delicate balancing act to ensure I didn't get thrown into the brig or shot.

"Admiral," I began simply, keeping my tone as neutral as I could. "I wanted to speak to you about something that's come to my attention. This counter-attack on the Cylons. It seems that the President was not consulted on it?"

"She was informed of my intentions," Cain replied. "She had no objections."

"With respect, ma'am. That's not what I heard."

"And what did you hear, Mr. Wolfkill?"

Even with Wolfkill wasn't my real last name, it still struck me to my core to hear her address me as such.

Well, point of no return crossed. Let's do it.

"I heard that you ignored the President's order to stand down from the attack," I said, keeping my inflections neutral and precise.

Cain paced slightly. I could see her gears churning as she processed this information and considered how to reply. Eventually she stopped and said, "We're in the middle of a war, Commander. We can't afford to be sidetracked by taking orders from a school teacher."

"She's the President of the Colonies," Commander Adama said. "She's earned our trust, besides."

"She hasn't earned mine," Cain replied. "And I can't afford to take chances on someone who would have us run in the face of the enemy."

"Again, with respect, Admiral," I said. "That's not your call to make. The President is the commander-in-chief. She is our boss. Unless you're declaring martial law and overthrowing the government, we have to obey her orders."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this!" Cain said, exasperated. "Commander, I know you're young but I didn't think you were stupid. Commander Adama, though, I can't believe you're taking his side in this!"

"I'm not taking sides, Admiral," Adama said.

"Admiral, what did I say that was stupid?" I asked her.

"We are at war!" Cain declared. "We don't have time to pick and choose our orders! We either fight or we die, and I do not intend to roll over and let the cylons kill us all!"

"I'm not suggesting we just let them win," I replied, feeling my own temper flare up slightly. "Every day we continue living is another victory for mankind. The war is over, ma'am. We lost. Our only option is to run and keep running until we find allies or we run out of space."

"So you want to take the coward's way out, is that it?" Cain demanded of me.

"I am not a coward," I replied stiffly. "My record has shown that and Commander Adama can attest to it. What I want is for mankind to survive the coming trials we're facing. An intact fleet is the best way to do it."

"And what does that suppose to mean, Commander?"

Frak. I really stepped in it now. "It means that we cannot afford to be divided. A house divided cannot stand, and in this game we're playing for all the marbles. There is no second chance or redo if we fail. Seven warships can't take on the whole Cylon Fleet, but it can protect our civilians while we try to find the thirteenth tribe."

"You believe that fairy tale?" Cain sneered.

"I believe in facts, ma'am. Fact: We're at Kobol. Fact: there were two berths capable of housing a Galleon-type colony ship. Fact: There is a strong possibility that there is another civilization of humans out there waiting for us to find them."

"And you agree with this, Commander Adama?"

"I do," Adama replied simply.

Cain paced again and looked at the deck plating. She looked on the verge of breaking. Then she said, "So it's treason then. You two are deserting me in the face of the enemy?"

"Admiral, it's not that simple anymore!" I said a little louder than I probably should. "Now more than ever we need to stick to our principles and our laws. We must obey the orders of the President, or we're nothing more than warlords and pirates! I swore an oath to defend the Articles of Colonization! If we're just doing what we feel like that than you're no longer an Admiral, I'm not a Commander, and I am not bound by any oath or order to obey you!"

And like that I ionized the atmosphere with tension so thick you could light it on fire and the whole room would spark into an inferno. Cain glared death itself at me. I stood my ground and did not look away.

"I don't know whether to shoot you or congratulate you on your battle plated balls, Commander," Cain finally said. "Maybe I should do both."

"I'm not your enemy, Admiral," I said softly. "I am a soldier. I want to follow you. I promise you that's true. Nothing would make me happier than to follow you into Hell and scrap every toaster son of a bitch in our way. But we can't afford that luxury. We have fifty-five thousand people left. Fifty-five thousand. We need to focus on protecting them first and fighting the Cylons second."

There was another awkward moment of ionized silence. Cain broke it when she said, "Very well, Commander. Consider your point made. I will… speak with the President about our next course of action. You and Commander Adama may return to your ships."

I saluted and turned about face in my best and most precise motions possible. As soon as I stepped out of the hatch I felt myself deflate as the tension left me for the most part.

"That could have gone better," Adama said once we were alone in the labyrinthine corridors of the _Pegasus_.

"It could have gone a lot worse, too," I countered. "As is I think we can count this as a win."

"We'll see," Adama said, and we said nothing more during our trip back to the flight deck.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Death and Politics**

Long story short there was no great colonial civil war between an insane Admiral Cain and Roslin's loyalists. I wasn't privy to the exact words of the conversation but I received an encrypted wireless call from the President.

"Commander," she said, "I don't know what you did, but thank you."

I, being in the CIC, said nonchalantly and respectfully, "You're welcome, Madam President."

That was more or less the whole of it. For a day it was quiet and things went about without anything exploding or anyone getting shot. Then I was summoned to the flagship by Admiral Cain.

For the second time within forty-eight hours I walked into the belly of the beast. This time I was less certain I was going to be shot or thrown in the brig but the day was still young and Cain's disposition was still unknown, and this time I didn't have Adama with me.

As I stepped off the raptor I consoled myself with the fact that a fireteam of marines with handcuffs weren't waiting for me as soon as I arrived. As I walked through the corridors of the _Pegasus_ I wondered what my crew would do if I was arrested or executed. I didn't really know the vast major majority of them and I knew the command crew on a last name basis. If I made it out of here alive I should probably see about fixing that.

When I arrived in the admiral's quarters she was sitting for once going over what looked like battle plans. Cain did not stand up or look at me when I stepped inside.

"Commander Wolfkill," I said with a salute. "Reporting as ordered."

"At ease," Cain said. "Take a seat."

I took a seat opposite her. For a woman who didn't believe in sitting her upholstery was quite comfortable. Despite that I didn't sit steady in my chair and fought to keep my leg from shaking. I waited to be addressed. Time passed slowly and I figured I was supposed to be stewing in fear. I was well past fear by this point. My mom had been the scariest person in the world when she was angry. Between that and standing up to a Cylon nuclear bombardment tended to either break you or temper you into something stronger.

Kendra shaw came and went delivering a report. I noticed she had captain's pips on her lapels and I wondered what she had done to earn those, since the Sylla Massacre hadn't happened. She pretended I didn't exist and judging from the way her eyes did their best to not even twitch in my direction I wondered what words Cain thought to use to describe me.

"Mr. Wolfkill," Cain finally said once Shaw left in the faux-conversational tone that said I was in trouble. "It seems you've left quite an impression with the President."

I said nothing at first. Did she have a spy on board Valkyrie? Was she listening in on my calls? I had nothing to hide and had no ambitions of my own other than the survival of mankind and said, "I don't know about that, ma'am. We've spoken a few times but other than that I don't think we have anything special."

"That's not what I've heard," the admiral said. "From what I've heard this isn't the first time you've sided with her against military needs."

"Shouldn't military needs be the same as civilian needs?" I asked.

"Not necessarily," Cain replied. "A military needs a clear focus and a driving initiative towards victory. Civilian needs come secondary in wartime."

Oh boy. That didn't sound good. I wondered if she was going to go through with a plan to take over the Rag-Tag Fleet.

"Are we at war, Admiral?" I asked. "Last I checked the war was over, and we lost."

Cain finally looked at me, and it was not a good look. She glared daggers at me without lifting her head and her eyes said it all.

 _Not while I have something to say about it._

"I already… _discussed_ this with the President. We will be going through with Operation Anubis. We need to shake off our Cylon tail before we start looking for the Odin Vaults. Once the battle is done I want Valkyrie to jump back to _Kobol_ and start looking for them again."

I resisted the urge to blink in surprise. What exactly had gone down in that conversation?

"Yes ma'am," I replied simply. "We'll get it done."

"See that you do. Dismissed."

The attack went underway as planned. I stood in the CIC of the _Valkyrie_ as events unfolded. I checked my wrist watch. Seventeen minutes until the attack. The plan was a simple one. The location of the Resurrection Ship, called Objective Anubis, was located in deep space with her escort fleet. All three battlestars, the missile cruiser Valiant, and our three Defender escorts would jump in and engage the Cylon escort fleet. The Resurrection Ship, designated Objective Anubis, would move away from the battle and engage her jump drives to escape. However the Phantasm would be waiting for her and plant a nuke up her engine exhaust port. After that the plan was to recover our vipers and raptors, then jump away. Assuming we couldn't destroy their escort fleet that is.

I wasn't too sure about our odds of destroying the Cylon escort fleet. Cylon ships were glass cannons, yes, but they were still deadly and they had the numbers advantage. Plus there was the chance they'd call in reinforcements.

In the final minutes till FTL jump I took a moment to myself and prayed.

 _Thor, Odin, Zeus, Apollo. Whoever is out there and put me in this situation, I damned well help you're listening. I could really use a break right now. A clean win or sign that I've made the right choice. It's the least you assholes owe me for all the bullshit you're putting me through._

Nobody answered my prayer and no soaking wet Boomer angel appeared over my shoulder to give me some sage advice. Guess I was going solo on this.

The minutes counted down till jump. Everything was set and prepared. Vipers waited in launch tubes or on the flight deck alongside raptor gunships. The military fleet was separated from the civilian fleet as we came into battle formation. For the second time since the Second Cylon War began, we were ready for a fight.

"Three, two, one!" Lt. Burton called out. "Jump!"

The inside-out feeling of an FTL jump twisted our guts as we jumped into position. The DRADIS reset and beeped as new contacts were detected and displayed. The Cylon escort fleet was dead ahead and waiting for us.

"Cylons have spotted us! They're launching raiders!" Burton reported as scores of new dots representing enemy squadrons appeared on DRADIS.

"Message from the flagship," Corinth said. "Operation Anubis is a go. Targets designated as follows: Baseships are Castle One through Three, Cruisers are Tower One through Four, escort frigates are Sword One through Seven."

"Launch vipers!" I commanded. I got a little kick out of that. It never got old. "Bring us up to attack speed and lock targets on Sword One and Two."

The computer systems beeped as the Cylons attempted to hack our non-existent network. All they succeeded in doing was infecting a few isolated, non-vital computer systems that were shut down and marked for later purging. The range closed and battle was joined. Viper squadrons mixed with raiders as a massive furball erupted between our two fleets. The _Valiant_ began pumping out missiles as fast as she could, scoring a heavy cruiser kill and disabling a Cylon frigate.

The Cylons fired off their incredible missile silos as well. _Valkyrie_ shook under the impact of missile strikes along her ventral hull and vibrated as the CIWS fired up. A few armor sections went from green to yellow but we escaped from it relatively unscathed. The real targets were the Galactica and Pegasus it seemed. The two battle-steel armored leviathans weathered the storm and came out the other side guns blazing.

 _Pegasus_ fired first with her semi-spinal railguns, blasting apart another heavy cruiser and scoring damage on one of the three basestars. _Galactica_ opened fire on the same basestar and brought it down in flames.

As the titans dueled the peons danced. _Valkyrie's_ smaller railguns pivoted and opened fire on the escort frigates as they came in range alongside the Defender destroyers. The Cylon frigates were well armed and even had adequate armor, but they lacked point defenses and were swarmed by the Raptor gunships. Anti-shipping missiles blasted chunks of hull plating and bulkheads off the main structure as _Valkyrie, Snarler, Adriatic_ , and _Concordia_ waded into their midsts and blasted them to pieces.

The cylon cruisers made their presence known as they targeted _Valkyrie_ , blasting at her without care for the lesser destroyers that surrounded her. That proved their downfall as the Defenders fired their close-in torpedo weapons and mulched through thin armor and deep into hull plating, making them easy to sweep up for _Valkyrie's_ guns.

 _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ assumed a combat orbit as we fought, dividing and conquering the remaining two basestars. Wearing them down under whither barrages of railgun artillery. The basestars floundered and failed to counter, signing their death warrants.

Of course this was all secondary to the main objective. None of us were close enough to hit the Anubis, which was boosting out of the combat zone with incredible speed. I worried that the Phantasm might not be able to catch it in time.

A radiological alarm sounded. A contact briefly appeared on the DRADIS and then it went fuzzy. When the radiation cleared the Anubis was rendered a twisted hulk of radioactive scrap.

" _Phantasm_ reports mission successful!" Corinth called out. The whole of the command crew cheered and I let a smile come over my face. This battle was won, but that little voice in the back of my head reminded me that the war wasn't over by far and that there were still actions and consequences waiting to show their ugly heads.

 _Too bad_ , I thought. _I'm going to enjoy this victory while it lasts._


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: The Odin Vaults Pt. 1**

Things were eerie calm as Valkyrie jumped from the fleet to Kobol once again.

"Jump complete," Lt. Burton called out. "Confirmed arrival in high orbit over Kobol."

"Very good," I replied casually. "Launch the CAP and start the search. Let's see if we can find these Odin Vaults in a timely manner."

Lt. Colonel Sokolov shared a sardonic smile with me. After weeks of searching before the Pegasus arrived she wasn't expecting to just discover it anytime soon. To be honest, neither way I.

I shared a look with her. _Maybe we'll get lucky this time._

 _Doubt it_ , she replied back.

There was the most subtle of shudders in the deck plating as the viper patrol was launched. Poor things were good planes for what they were but in all of sci-fi they seemed like the odd man out. The unloved, beaten redheaded stepchild of the omniverse. I wondered what kind of planes the 13th Tribe were flying, if they were superior or inferior or equal to the vipers we were flying or the raiders the Cylons were.

Lt. Burton arrived at my side with a map of the system. He laid it out over the tactical plot and I couldn't resist giving an annoyed sigh as I examined it.

"Oki doki," I said. "Where do we search next?"

"Well, we could start examining the lesser asteroids," Lt. Burton replied. He gestured at the small icy gas giant sitting in the outer system. "They're pretty desolate. Lots of rogue asteroids that were captured with no major resources nearby. If I was building an armageddon vault I'd put it there."

"Maybe," I said. "Okay let's send Xerxes and Paladin over and see what…"

My words trained off as a slender finger slid across the map and sat on Kobol. I followed the finger up an arm covered in a flight suit and found a wet Boomer angel staring at me.

"Uhm… sir?" Lt. Burton asked.

"Actually," I said, not taking my eyes off of the Boomer angel. "Let's try something different. Get me the survey map of Kobol."

Burton seemed confused but complied with my order. The map of Kobol was brought up and I finally broke eye contact with the angel to look at her pointing finger. She was pointing at a valley that probably at one point had been home to an idyllic village or small town.

Going off a feeling I reached out with my own finger and touched the Boomer angel's. I looked her in the eye again. She smiled at me and nodded.

I blinked and she was gone.

"There," I said. "That's where we'll find the Odin Vault."

Burton, Sokolov, and every other sailor on the bridge fixed me with a queer look.

"You're sure, sir?" Sokolov asked.

"Dead certain," I replied. "Let's get a raptor survey team down there immediately. Three birds with marines on board."

"Yes, sir," Sokolov said and looked to Lt. Burton.

I then announced quietly, "I'm going down with them."

You could hear a pin drop in the silence that came in the wake of those words.

"Sir, I don't think that's wise," Sokolov said.

"Maybe not," I acknowledged with a shallow nod. I looked her dead in the eye when I said, "I'm going down with the survey party."

"Begging the Commander's pardon, may I ask why?"

"You can ask," I said in that manner of voice that said I wasn't going to explain myself. I held Sokolov's gaze and she nodded. I said, "You have the ship, Colonel."

"Yes, sir," she said. "I have the ship."

"How long has it been since you flew a Raptor, sir?"

I was taken out of my headspace by the words of my pilot. His callsign was Xerxes but his name was Robert "Bobby" Coletrain.

"A long ass fracking time ago," I replied with a smile as the memories of Alexander Wolfkill surfaced and took control. "I spent my first tour of duty flying a bus like this. It was only in my second tour that the CO thought I was cooled down enough to be trusted with a Viper. This was back when the Mark 5 was the hottest shit in town."

"So roughly when the Argo came to the Colonies?" he retorted. We shared a smile that lightened up the atmosphere of the Raptor. It was pretty damned cramped in here, even though it was just me, Xerxes, Xerxes' copilot, and three marines. I was in the copilot's seat as we taxied out of the Valkyrie's hangar deck elevator and prepared for take off.

"About then," I replied, wondering if this transition or merging of personalities had killed the original Alexander Wolfkill, or if he was currently living in my body back home on the OG Earth. If so I owed that guy several beers for dealing with the mess I'd made of my life.

The trip down to Kobol was uneventful. No Cylon fighters suddenly jumped us like in canon, though this time we did have a viper escort going down. We landed in the valley I'd pointed out. The marines were first out, followed by me.

Kobol was a bleak place. There was no greenery at all. No blue skies with white clouds. Only shades of grey everywhere you looked.

"This place is a shithole," one of the marines groused.

"Agreed," I replied as I looked about. There wasn't a whole lot to see except for dirt and gravel along with the dead husks of trees.

"It's sad, isn't it?" the Boomer angel asked me, suddenly appearing at my side. "The people they worship were more wasteful and undeserving than they deserved. They killed a whole planet over what? Greed? Spite?"

"I don't particularly care," I muttered, making sure none of the others could hear me. "The past is the past. You going to do something useful or just talk about how much humans suck at me?"

The angel looked at me and said, "All this has happened before. All this will happen again."

"No," I said, shaking my head as memories of the new Earth and its idiocy filled my mind. "I'm breaking the cycle. Now, you going to help me or not?"

The Boomer angel quirked a disbelieving eyebrow at me but said nothing. Instead she started walking down towards the tiny stream that had once been a riverbed.

"On me," I said over my shoulder to the landing party. "I know the way to go."

The landing party seemed confused but indulged their CO. They followed me as I followed the angel.

"I gotta ask," I said quietly when close enough to the Boomer angel. "Why me?"

"Why you what?" the Boomer replied.

"Why was I chosen? Why the _Valkyrie_?"

"The Valkyrie is the chooser of the slain. The worthy ones who will go to Valhalla and fight for mankind in the Final Days."

I blinked as my mind made the connection.

"Wait, so I died? Back on Earth? And the ship chose me?"

Boomer nodded.

 _What the actual frak?_


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: The Odin Vaults Pt. 2**

We wandered through the cold, bitter river valley, following my lead as I took my lead from the angel. My mind raced with the revelations shared with me. My ship chose me? What kind of frakked up science fantasy did I pop into? As someone who fancied themselves a storyteller it was certainly an interesting turn of events but as someone who was pretending to be someone else it made no sense. How had _Valkyrie_ chose me out of all other options, including her original commander? Why did she choose me?

Maybe there'll be a petite redhead with freckled cheeks waiting to explain it once I got back to the ship, I thought to myself.

Nah. That'd be too easy. Too simple. These stories could never be that straightforward, right?

Right?

We kept walking for what felt like two hours up the river bed until we reached the ruins of a small village. Or at least, the ruins of the ruins. Nature had been aggressive in her reclamation of the land. All that was still standing were a few ruined walls and a chapel. The angel walked up to the chapel and entered.

"Beckler, Torran," I said, calling the name of two of the marines, "keep guard. Everyone else, with me."

I entered the chapel and watched the angel walk to the pulpit. I tried not to blink for as long as I could, but as soon as I did she disappeared. Typical. I approached the pulpit and examined it. It was oddly traditionally Earth-like to see. There seemed no hint of where the entrance to the vault might be.

In the end inspiration came from an old video game. I pushed over the pulpit and sure enough, beneath it was the entrance. I broke out a flashlight and gazed down. There was a ladder leading into the darkness, which ran deep and downward.

"Shiny," I said conversationally. "Shall we?"

Despite my desire to go first I was convinced to allow one of the marines to take the lead. It wasn't as deep as it seemed at first. We had to go through single file through the tight confines of the entrance. It was like walking through a catacombs or some ancient sewer. We walked in silence, all thought of banter and witty commentary disappeared in the darkness.

The ancient sewer system suddenly and abruptly broke into a very modern if dusty and moldy modern facility with a high ceiling. It was obviously a bunker or the entrance to one. Definitely an entrance, because there was a massive steel door sitting in front of us.

"Electronics are still intact," a marine specialist announced after examining some of the surrounding equipment. "Just need to find the generator."

The generator was found nearby and activated. With its low pitched whining rising the lights turned on to show the facility's age. Watching the door creak open was like watching a tomb open up. Hopefully there were no zombies or angry mummified pharaoh on the other side.

On the other side was what could only be called a command center, and a high tech one at that. Lots of big flat screen monitors and slick looking keyboards. There were server racks everywhere. Terabytes upon terabytes of data waiting to be sifted through.

"Damn it," one of the marines complained. "It's going to take us days to haul all this shit back to _Valkyrie_."

Angel Boomer came into my vision from behind me and walked to a server rack on the right hand side, at the very end. She pointed to one piece of equipment in particular and looked at me.

"Maybe not," I said to the marine. I walked over to the server rack Angel Boomer was standing next to and tapped it with my hand. This one. Start with this one."

The marine corporal looked at me like I'd just suggested eating maggots was a smart idea. She asked, "How do you know, sir? Respectfully speaking, I mean."

"Call it my intuition," I replied.

Two hours and forty-seven minutes later I was back aboard _Valkyrie_. The marine was right. It was going to take at least three days of non-stop work to get all of the servers onboard.

"We should probably start directing the Raptors to jump back to the fleet," I said to Lt. Colonel Sokolov. We were both sitting in my quarters talking over a light dinner of noodles and broccoli. " _Galactica_ has the egghead experts in software and a lab already set up. We should probably send over Simon with them to see what they think."

"Simon?" Sokolov repeated, looking at me with a queer look in her eye. "We're referring to it by name now?"

"He," I replied, stressing the pronoun. "It's a he. He's a sapient being and a very helpful one at that. He doesn't deserve that kind of disrespect."

"Oh sure," Sokolov replied. "It just destroyed our entire civilization and its buddies are hunting us down to kill us."

"Well, he's in the same boat as us now. If we die, he dies too. I doubt he'll betray us."

Sokolov shrugged. "If you say so, sir."

After dinner I popped into the shower to wash the ash and sweat of Kobol off he. I couldn't help but feel like I had a voyeur nearby watching me. Ever since returning to the _Valkyrie_ I couldn't help but feel I was being watched by the bulkheads and the deck plating. It was irrational to think but there was nothing particularly rational about my situation.

" _Valkyrie_ ," I said, quietly. "I don't know if you can hear or understand me, but… I guess… Well what I want to say is thank you for giving me the chance to do some good. I just wish you'd explain somethings to me. Help things make a bit more sense, you know?"

If the battlestar heard me it made no reply.

"Executing jump in three, two, one!"

The Valkyrie jumped back to the Fleet's coordinates in interstellar space to find them exactly where we left them. Seeing all of those green icons on DRADIS brought a smile to my face and the faces of several others. For lack of a better descriptor, it felt like coming home again.

"Commander," Petty Officer Peter Corinth called out, "Fleet Command welcomes us back to the Fleet, and say your presence is requested on Colonial One at your next possible convenience."

Sokolov and I shared a look.

"What do you think the President wants now?" Sokolov asked.

"Hell if I know," I replied.

Aboard Colonial One was President Roslin waiting for me, along with Admiral Cain and Commander Adama. Adama was his usual stoic self and Cain looked like she'd just sucked on a particularly sour lemon.

"Commander Wolfkill, welcome back from Kobol," the President said to me in her warm voice.

"Thank you, Madam President," I replied. "It's good to be back. I brought back a lot of interesting data for Doctor Amarack's team to go through. Hopefully we'll find the coordinates to Earth in them."

"I hope so," Roslin agreed.

"If I may ask, Madam President, what's going on?"

"While you were gone we've had some discussion over the issue of who will be in command of the military fleet," Roslin said. "Admiral Cain has agreed to step down as Fleet Command and accept demotion to the rank of Commander."

I blinked in surprise and looked at Cain. Her sour expression betrayed nothing, but her eyes told the story. There had been a lot of arguing, and in the end she'd lost.

"Well then, I suppose congratulations are in order, Admiral Adama," I said preemptively, nodding at the man.

"Actually, it's not Commander Adama we'd like to assume the role and responsibility," Roslin said. She picked up a little box from her table and walked over to me. She presented the box and opened it. Inside was a pair of pips: the star of the Colonial Fleet flanked by two ranks of chevrons on each side. "Congratulations, Admiral Wolfkill. You are now Fleet Commander."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13: Admiral**

"Okay, hold up!" I said. "Let's rewind a bit here. What?"

"Admiral Cain has agreed to step down as military fleet commander," Roslin said indulgently. "You're being offered the job."

I looked at Cain then Adama. Neither said a thing but they met my gaze.

"I… I can't accept this, Madam President," I said. "I'm not qualified or experienced enough."

 _Bullshit_ , Roslin said with her eyes. With her mouth she said, "On the contrary. You're exactly the kind of person we need in charge of the Colonial military right now."

"I thought Admiral Cain was doing a fine job defending the fleet," I replied.

Cain interjected, "The President doesn't trust me and Adama doesn't want the job. You're the last one standing without a chair."

I looked at Adama and said, "Commander, may I ask why?"

"I know my limits," Adama replied. "I'm not a fleet commander. Hell I was going to be retired when the war started."

I looked at Cain and said, "Admiral. You can't just give up at the first hurdle! You're a good, competent officer!"

"Thank you, Mr. Wolfkill but I'm not giving up _Pegasus_. I'm just stepping down as Fleet Command. I'll still be here to offer my assistance when needed."

"I still don't like this," I said. "What the hell happened while I was gone?"

"This should be a private conversation," Adama said. Cain seemed to agree as both of them left the compartment and presumably the ship. The President and I took seats around her desk.

"Okay," I said by way of preamble, "what the hell happened while I was at Kobol?"

"A lot of talking," Roslin said. "A lot of disagreements and discussions. A lot of shouting and more disagreements. Namely, Cain can't let go that we've lost the war and Adama doesn't want the job. You should know he endorsed you for the position. Whatever his flaws may be, he has an eye for talent."

I'll admit the indirect flattery worked enough to make me pause, which gave my brain the space it needed to think. As much as this version of Cain wasn't an insane torturer she still wasn't material to lead the fleet. There was too much rage and violence in her soul to be able to follow the President's decisions. Adama, on the other hand, was the epitome of damaged goods. He was a good commander and could be relied on, but if he refused to take command of the fleet he had good reasons to. If Roslin couldn't talk him into it then what luck did I have? Like they said, in the end I was the one standing without a chair when the music stopped.

That didn't mean I had to like it. This reeked of so much bullshit. It made me realize that in my attempts to change canon I had changed it in an unexpected way: the quiet war for leadership between the military and the civilian government. In canon it had ended up being a draw and compromise between Adama and Roslin. Because of my presence and actions I had inadvertently tipped the scales towards the civilian government. Roslin had won and now I was being rewarded for my loyalty.

I couldn't suppress the sour look on my face as I said, "Okay, assuming I do accept this doesn't mean I'm going to be your yes man. That doesn't help either of us or the fleet. If I'm going to be Chief of Naval Operations then I need the support of the government to make sure my orders carry the authoritative weight they should."

"Of course," Roslin said diplomatically. "It's not my intention to undermine the military. However military needs must be subordinate to civilian ones."

"You won't see any disagreement from me about that so long as the defense of the Fleet isn't compromise."

"Agreed," Roslin replied.

We looked at eachother for a long moment, then I reached out and took the box.

"So it all boils down to politics?" Lt. Colonel Sokolov asked, once again sitting with me in my quarters a few hours later.

"Pretty much," I groused. "Not much I can do about it now."

"Hey, look on the bright side! You're probably the youngest admiral in Colonial history!"

"Lucky me."

"So," Sokolov ventured. "You planning on moving your flag to _Galactica_? Maybe _Pegasus_?"

I shook my head. "Nah. _Valkyrie_ is my boat and I'll stick with her till the day I die. Besides I already know everyone on her." I sighed and said, "Damn, can you imagine that _Valkyrie_ would be flagship of the Colonial Fleet? Or that I'd be admiral?"

Sokolov shrugged. "Stranger things have happened. Like your little clairvoyance. How did you manage that, by the way?"

I flushed and hurried replied, "The Sacred Scrolls. They made mention of one of the Vaults being in a river valley. So all I did was connect the dots."

"Really?" Sokolov asked, her disbelief dripping from her voice. "The Sacred Scrolls said all that?"

"Well, there was a lot of luck involved," I replied, feeling it was an honest enough answer. "Guess we just got really lucky."

"Guess so," Sokolov shrugged, seemingly mollified for now. "So, what's the next phase of the plan, _Admiral?"_

"Stay in this general area until we get some idea of where Earth is," I said casually.

"I thought Commander Adama knew where Earth was," Sokolov said, giving me a quisical look.

 _Shit. Frak! I really stepped into it now!_

"That," I said honestly, sighing, "was a little white lie to give people hope. Honestly finding Kobol was a real stroke of luck. That's not meant for general knowledge, though. So keep that under your hat."

"Yes, sir," Sokolov said with light sarcasm. "I'll be getting something for my silence, right? Like, say, a promotion?"

I laughed, "How does a steak dinner sound?"

Sokolov made a face of consideration, then said, "Very well. I guess that'll do."


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: Colonial Day**

My promotion was held aboard Cloud 9 in a fairly big ceremony around which the Fleet Press buzzed like flies on cow manure. It was scheduled to hitch up with Colonial Day and the re-opening of the Quorum of Twelve. I was glad that my 15 Minutes of Fame coincided with it. Being the center of attention was always something uncomfortable for me, as I detested being put on the spot and put under the proverbial microscope. Being the center of a promotion ceremony felt about three to four times worse than it usually did.

"You stand any more straight you're going to look like you got a stick up your ass," Colonel Sokolov whispered into my ear. We stood in the back row as the President gave the introductions and otherwise warmed up the crowd.

"That is the intention, yes," I quipped back. I lessened my posture by a few centimeters, shifting from "wound up like a spring" to merely "statue-like" and waited for my que. I looked out at the crowd without moving my eyes. There were at least a hundred people gathered out on the green today. All here just to see me get my admiral pips pinned on my lapels. If I had an ego it'd be thrilled at the event. As it was, I was terrified of fracking it up and making a fool of myself.

I mentally shook off those thoughts. Sitting in my darker thinking was just going to give me nerves. I reinforced my will with steel and resumed awaiting my call to answer. As I waited I continued trying to figure out what I would say. I figured I'd keep it short and sweet. Keep it humble and unassuming. Most of all, speak from the heart and give the Fleet something to smile about.

"And so I am very pleased to welcome and introduce to you, Admiral of the Colonial Fleet, Alexander Wolfkill," President Roslin said, clapping to induce the crowd to join in. They did and it was like listening to the roll of thunder just before a storm to me. Like Thor himself was welcoming me into the annals of legend.

I stepped forward and took the podium. I said with a hint of stiffness, "Thank you, Madam President. It is my honor to accept this responsibility."

I paused briefly and stole more lines from Lee Adama from when he became Pegasus Commander.

"Six months ago our world changed for the worst. We found ourselves shouldering responsibilities we never thought we'd have to. Suffered hardships we never imagined we'd have to suffer. Fifty-five thousand men and women are all that remain of our species. We are hounded and hunted by those we considered our neighbors at one point. It is easy to give in to despair and self pity. Easier than to accept this new responsibility. Now, more than ever before, every individual matters. Every action we undertake will be remembered from now until the end of time. Every action undertaken by every man, woman, and child. Now, more than ever, we are needed to be at our very best and set an example of what it means to be human. I intend to give you all my all as I assume command of the Colonial Fleet. I expect nothing less from my pilots and sailors."

Polite clapping filled the air with enough force to say it was well accepted by the crowd of officers and press personnel. I resisted the urge to look back at my XO and at Commanders Cain and Adama. I did my best to accept the applause as a soldier did and not show any emotion or sign that the applause was not affecting me. Though I did feel a bit of pride at the intensity of the clapping.

The President thanked me for my words and the ceremony concluded.

I was at the bar drinking what was described as Canceron Whiskey when a leggy blonde in a red dress made her way over to me. I pretty much jumped out of my skin and felt naked without my sidearm until I realized that it wasn't a Model Six. The skin was several shades darker, almost dusky even, and the facial structure was all wrong. Whereas the Six was supermodel pretty this woman was more Girl-Next-Door with a pageboy style cut to her dark blonde hair.

"Hello there," I said, smiling. I was riding high off the emotions of the ceremony and a little tipsy from the strong liquor's effect on a body unused to drinking. "Buy you a drink?"

"Sure," she said. "Stacy Mormon. Caprica Times."

"Oh, a reporter, eh?" I said, suspicions raised slightly. "Come to try and get a one-on-one with the Admiral?"

"The thought crossed my mind," Stacy Mormon of the Caprica Times said. "Of course that requires consent from both parties. It's kinda like sex that way."

My cheeks flushed red and my brain's chemistry spiked hot. Now my suspicions were raised. I recognized the tactic she was trying to use. She was trying to get my off balance so that I'd be more likely to spill something. On someone else that might have worked, but in my case it put me on guard and I had to resist the urge to frown and look at her with suspicion.

"What can I do for you, Miss Mormon," I asked her.

"Well, I was hoping to ask you what you were planning on doing, now that you're Fleet Admiral," Ms. Mormon said. She was switching tactics to directness now that she saw that putting me off balance would put me on guard. She'd probably just try to get me talking and give me rope to hang myself with. "Admiral Cain didn't really have a plan other than 'fight the cylons.'"

That seemed easy enough. So where was the trap?

I replied, "Protect the Fleet. Get us to Earth."

"I heard through the grapevine that we pulled a lot of information from a doomsday vault on Kobol. Did the information it had confirm Commander Adama's coordinates for Earth?" she asked.

"I cannot confirm or deny that," I said.

"Why not?" She pressed. "I also heard that the Colonial Marines rounded up all of the Cylon spies in the Fleet."

"InfoSec is a pain like that," I said with a small smile. That smile got bolder as Stacy Mormon gave me a confused look.

"InfoSec?" she asked.

"Information Security," I replied. "Loose Lips Sink Ships."

"Who said that?"

"An old admiral from before the First War with the Cylons," I said with a dismissive gesture. "It's not important. What is is the fact that we got to be careful what we say. You never know who might be listening in."

"That's a paranoid way of thinking," Stacy Mormon said, her disapproval a small hint in the otherwise sexy contralto voice of hers. I blinked and mentally shook myself up to not be dazzled by her beauty.

"It's a military way of thinking," I countered.

"Speaking of military ways, it's being circulated that there was a massive amount of drama leading up to your promotion and Admiral Cain's demotion. Care to offer a comment to the press?"

Shit. She got me there. What did I say?

After a pause I replied, "Not really. Politics isn't my forte and I don't feel the need to linger on that."

"Is that why you've thrown your lot in with President Roslin against Admiral Cain?"

I ground my molars a little and glared subtly at her. Whoever she had been talking to seemed to know an awful lot.

"I didn't 'throw in,'" I replied with an undertone of coldness. "I followed my orders and did what was expected of a Colonial Fleet sailor and of an officer in a time of war."

"So you confirm that we are in a time of war?" Mormon asked. "I thought the war was over, and that we lost."

Shit. Fracking shit. I repositioned mentally and thrust forward to counter her assault to offset me.

"The Second Cylon War was lost the moment the Cylons got the ability to infiltrate our computers the way that they did," I replied again. "However the war for humanity's survival is still being waged."

"And how is that war, going, Admiral, in your official opinion?"

Now this was an easy question. I replied,"We win every day. Just by existing we vex the Cylons to no end. We stretch their resources as they attempt to chase us, and after we smacked them in Operation Anubis we've given them reason to pause and rethink their tactics. We've reminded them that we're not defenseless and we will fight them for our right to survive."

"I see," Ms. Mormon said. "Thank you for your time, Admiral, and thanks for the drink."

I nodded her off and returned to my own drink. In the after action report I was forming in my own head at this incident I had the feeling that she'd gotten something from me, and had achieved some kind of victory. On the other hand, I was fairly certain that I hadn't given away important information and had hopefully laid the foundations for a good relationship with the press.


	15. Chapter 15

A creature was highlighted against the star studded black of space. It was some hellish mixture of a spider and a western dragon. It had the body of the latter, complete with the wings and the fangs, but instead of the four or two legs of a dragon it had the eight legs of a spider and the beady, shining obsidian eyes of a spider. Its scales were blacker than black. Blacker than the gulfs of space itself. Whatever light touched the scales seemed to be swallowed whole. Its belly was red like rubies and its wings were as vast as nebulas and were colored gold and steel. When it opened its maw belching flames spat forth and burned planets down to cinders. When its claws slashed they destroyed the stars that warmed the planets and asteroids. Where its eyes' sight reached plants and animals and people died. They died of disease and famine and by the black swords of things that I could only call demons because that was what they were. These demons were the unwilling servants of the dragon-spider, who controlled its slaves by invisible chains of words and dogma.

This thing had many names. Some of its names were Nidhogg and Surtur. Other names were Abaddon and Lucifer. Some adopted names were Loki and Chernabog, but they were stolen names taken as trophies of war. In the ancient tongues of Kobol its name was simply Deathwing and Blackest Night. Light Eater and Sun Hater. So many names to describe it and yet they all come to one common root: Evil, Jealousy, and Darkness.

The Dragon-Spider released its army of the wretched and the damned like the cold waves of a moonless ocean, splashing upon the rocks of a shore that surrounded a burning candle flame the size of a lighthouse. The dark waters of the Dragon's storm covered the shore and threatened to drown the candle's flame. It flickered and threatened to die, and I cried out for it to not be so. The tides ignored me and the Dragon-Spider laughed with cruel notes in its voice that was like glass breaking and nails on chalkboards and the crashing of boulders down a mountainside.

The candle light died. I cried and wept, for knowledge, reason, and love had died. It was through these tears that I rejoiced as I saw the candle spark and sputter again, sending thirteen embers that flew on warm summer winds to thirteen candles far from the original. Twelve of the thirteen were arranged in a circle with the thirteenth sat far from the other.

This defiance enraged the Dragon-Spider and it sent the waves of its armies to quench the twelve candle flames. The waves again crashed against invisible shores and threatened to throttle the light, but the candles seemed to grow ever brighter and fiercer until it seemed that they were more bonfires than mere candle flames. These lights were still extinguished, and I wept.

Except once again, a spark came from all twelve candles and the twelve sparks merged to become one, and they fled towards the thirteenth candle. Ever present behind them were the crashing waves of the Dragon-Spider's armies.

When the spark merged with the thirteenth flame I saw the flame grow as bright as a star. Four people stepped forward. They were dressed and armed in a fusion of old norse and greek armor holding weapons.

Among their company was a tall, broad man. He wielded a war hammer in one hand and a golden shield with the greek letter for A on the center. He was bloodied and dark of eye and intent. His name was Ares and Thor. It was name was Beowulf and Heracles. He was the Red Handed Warrior who was covered in the blood of enemies and innocent alike. His name was War.

Beside War was Wisdom. Wisdom was a woman with steely grey hair and missing an eye. She was sickly and ancient in age, leaning on her own shield but still gripping a magnificent spear and her single eye was still potent and flashed with insight. Her name was Mimir and Athena and Odin. She was knowledge tempered by experience and opinion. She was the older sister of War and attempted to caution him in how and when to fight.

Then there was Bravery. Bravery was a beautiful young woman with dark hair and bronzed, sun kissed skin. She wore nothing more than a tunic and a skirt and wielded a war bow with a viking longsword on her hip, and quiver of arrows on her back. Her red eyes were filled with youthful determination and a hint of innocence and naivety. Her names was Artemis and Freya. Her name was Apollo and Skadi. She is the lesser of the three and at the same time the most of them. She is the willingness to fight and kill mixed with the knowledge that to defend one must attack, and feels remorse for the lives that must be snuffed out to defend innocents.

The last of them was an amazon of a woman. She wielded a massive two-bearded battle axe that was as tall as she was. She was dressed in leather armor and looked more viking than greek because of her leather armor, covered in runes, and from her fair complexion and the long gold hair of the nordic people. She was mannish in posture and build and yet she was still feminine of face and beautiful of figure. Her name was Humanity. Just, Humanity. She was all three combined and more. Without her the other three were merely cold statues of marble, bronze, and steel respectively. And yet without the three she was little more than an animal herself, a slave to her own impulses and primitive thought.

Together War, Wisdom, Bravery, and Humanity lead an army of sparks against the black ocean waves of the Dragon-Spider. The Dragon-Spider roared and spat fire enough to drown the universe in flame, and the quartet charged into it singing a funeral dirge that began with the words, "All this has happened before. All this will happen again. All this with end in dark flame and sun fire. So say we all."

I awoke with a pounding headache and a lot of confusion. What the hell kind of dream was that? Some kind of prophecy? A warning? A commentary? I took a shower to shake these thoughts off. Suds stung my eyes and I swore harshly.

"Gods damn it!" I said. "Give me a straight fucking answer god damn you! I'm playing the role you want so be frank with me you stingy, cryptic bastards!"

The gods, if that's who sent me here, did not answer. I washed the suds out of my eyes and towelled off. Sitting in nothing but a towel, I got to work. I was too wound up to try recreational reading and I didn't want to try working out just after showering. I couldn't go back to sleep either, so I hoped to bore myself in paperwork. By god, there was so much paperwork.

Cold facts cut through the confusion of my mind as I reviewed the status of the Ragtag Fleet's fuel status. It was eight days since Colonial Day and I was already stressed out to the breaking point. I was stressed not from the fighting or the chase, but from the logistics of the Fleet.

It seems in my efforts to avert canon I'd created a new issue. While I had avoided the accident that killed thirteen pilots and necessitated Kara Thrace to train new nuggets, it also meant that the Fleet didn't expend almost all of its aviation fuel on a fruitless search for a missing Starbuck. While that meant there was no fuel crisis it also meant that there was no need to find the asteroid with the lake of tylium, giving the RTF enough fuel to last years. As it was, we had enough fuel for maybe a month and a half before we ran out. Trying to find new sources of Tylium would slow down the fleet and allow the Cylons to catch up with us.

In terms of food and water we had enough for a year or so, depending on how well we rationed. We were already rationing as it was and we were getting complaints and the occasional demonstration. We had the same amount of antibiotics and other medications. This was because of President Roslin's orders to partly empty the military fleet's stores to keep an epidemic from breaking out among the civilian fleet, who despite the new ships and the reopening of Cloud 9 were still living in cramped conditions about freighters and passengers liners simply not made for this kind of long term habitation.

Then there was the ammunition, vipers, and manpower of the Colonial Fleet. We had one hundred seventeen Vipers left and Pegasus didn't have the raw materials needed to make new Vipers. We also had seventy-seven raptors left to perform bomber and SWACs duty. For reference on how fracked we were, the standard loadout for these three battlestars combined would be four hundred twenty vipers and a hundred raptors. At least we had enough ammunition to last for five full sorties if needed.

Speaking of ammunition, we had enough cannon shells and missiles for two, maybe three battles. Again, depending on how intense the fighting was. While _Galactica_ and _Valkyrie_ had loaded up their magazines at Ragnar Anchorage, those magazines had been emptied in fighting as well as being distributed to the four Defender-class Destroyers and the _Pegasus_. Supplying the _Artemis_ was the hardest part of the job. _Artemis_ was a missile cruiser meant to operate as part of a battlestar group. A proper battlestar group with support ships and an intact supply chain. Without missiles she was just a useless hull, and she only had two good salvos left.

Then there was the armor plating. We could replace bits and pieces from the two repair ships present but there was a lot of armor to replace on _Valkyrie_ and _Pegasus_ , and that was before we got into the hot mess that was the Galactica, her lack of armor plating, and the bad bones that would eventually start showing themselves.

Suffice to say, we were in a bad straight. We were a paper tiger. All it would take was one bad day and we were screwed.

As the thought crossed my mind I looked up at the speakers and half expected them to start blaring action stations. I watched for a good ten minutes, but they did not. Ten minute stretched into fifteen, and by seventeen minutes I accepted that for now we weren't going to be in a fight.

The time was three minutes after one in the morning. I wished I could sleep but couldn't. Too many self-doubts and niggling factoids squirming in my brain like maggots to let me sleep. Just what the hell was I doing? I wasn't a real soldier. I wasn't even who I was pretending to be! Yet here I was, Admiral of the Colonial Fleet and leader of the RTF's military during the twilight of humanity. My own words from Cloud 9 rang like mellow gongs in my ears and they rang hollow. I didn't know how to address all of the problems I was facing and if I couldn't fix them what good was I? Even the short term problems seemed insurmountable as they crowded around me and the long term problems loomed in the distance.

The answer was simple. It all relied on Earth and the 13th Tribe. Earth needed to be everything we hoped it was and more. It couldn't be modern Earth or anything short of a peer power for the Cylons or all of humanity would be swept aside. What were the chances of that? If the dream I had was prophetic like I thought it was than I was somehow expected to destroy The Colony and the Cylons before the fleet reached Earth. How was I going to do that? I didn't have the foggiest idea of where it was hiding other than some black hole somewhere. I couldn't exactly ask my cylon prisoners directly and it was unlikely they would tell me other than maybe Simon, but would he be willing to help me genocide his own race?

My hand moved by itself and reached into the lower of the two desk drawers and opened it. Inside was a box of matches and a case of cigarettes. I stared at them like a suicidal man stares at a gun. I wasn't a smoker in my old life thanks to asthma and seeing my grandmother die from long term tobacco damage to her body. Yet this body didn't have those problems. I needed a release valve for this stress I was under. Showering didn't do it. Working out didn't do it. Maybe smoking was my answer?

I took out a cigarette and struck a match. I lit the business end of the cigarette and took my first puff.

I dropped the cigarette on my desk as I keeled over, coughing and sputtering as the tobacco smoke was repulsed by my lungs and a brain that registered danger and tried to expunge it from the system. I ended up kneeling on my hands and knees on the floor, hacking and gasping for air. Vomit rushed out of my throat and I emptied the contents of my stomach on to the carpet.

A knock on the bulkhead was heard and the marine on the other side asked, "Everything okay in there, sir?"

I tried to answer and managed to just cough. Eventually I managed a weak yes that was powerful enough to carry to the marine. I managed to get back into my chair and glared at the cigarette. It ended up crushed, extinguished, and in my small trash bin along with the rest of the packet and the box of matches. I crawled, defeated and with slumped shoulders, into bed and managed to find sleep again. I hoped it would be a dreamless one.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16: The Road to Earth Pt. 1**

The next morning I had to force myself to eat breakfast and fight a raging nuclear war with my stomach to not lose said breakfast all over my uniform as I marched into the CIC.

"Admiral on deck!" the marine guard announced.

"As you were," I said before everyone could finish rising and snapping a salute. I made my way to the plotting table and placed my mug on it.

Lt. Colonel Sokolov shuffled up next to me and asked, "Everything okay, Admiral?"

"Just dandy," I lied. "Why do you ask?"

"Well for one, that seems to be tea and not coffee in your cup," Sokolov pointed out. "I don't think I've ever seen you drink tea before."

"I've grown accustomed to it when my stomach is upset," I said, feeling the words flow out of me like water from a broken spigot. "Tried smoking last night for the first time and it disagreed with me incredibly so."

Sokolov looked at me, confused.

"What?" I asked her.

"I thought you were an avid smoker," she said carefully. "I don't think I've ever been in your quarters and not found you smoking."

Shit! I went blank eyed and reached into Wolfkill's memories. He was an avid smoker. Not enough to the point where he was smoking a pack a day but still part of his personality. How the hell had I fucked this up?

"Oh," I said to buy time for a lie. I said further, "Sorry. I meant I tried smoking again since the Attack on the Colonies. It disagreed with me to the point I think I'm just going to try trading my cigs for booze."

I fixed a smile that would show I was joking, but it felt forced even for me.

"Okay," Sokolov said, jutting her chin out in thought. "Well at least you're finally kicking the habit. Withdrawal is going to be ugly when we finally run out of recreational drugs and real booze, though."

"That's why we'd better do our best to find Earth then!" I said, now beaming a real, confident smile.

Sokolov was about to say something when the DRADIS beeped multiple times in rapid succession. My Lt. Colonel and I looked up at the DRADIS console and our brains read the situation seconds before the tactical officer announced what was happening.

"Cylon fleet just jumped into DRADIS range!" Lt. Burton replied. "Read seven baseships, five cruisers, and fifteen escort ships! Range, two hundred thousand klicks! They're launching raiders!"

I stared at the DRADIS and confirmed the numbers. Sure enough there was seven baseships with twenty-two other warships flying escort pressing in on us. So many raiders were launching from the baseships that the DRADIS was having trouble keeping track of them. Individual raider blips were swallowed into squadron blips, which were eventually swallowed into wing blips.

"We can't fight that many," I whispered. Then I said in my command voice, "Order the fleet to jump to emergency fallback coordinate! All battlestars move to blunt the attack, escorts and vipers cover the flanks!"

My orders went from my mouth to the ears of my subordinates on the _Valkyrie_ and from them to the warships and civilian ships of the fleet. _Valkyrie_ , _Galactica_ , and _Pegasus_ formed a triangle with two hundred kilometers between the points. The four Defender-class Destroyers formed a square behind our battlestar triangle with half of the vipers and raptor gunships in our fleet flying in escort to intercept anything that got past the battlestars, the massive flak fields they threw up, and the other half of our Vipers and Raptors. The _Artemis_ held her ground in the center of the square, ready to offer support however she could.

"Shit," I whispered to Sokolov. "They're learning."

The Cylon Fleet divided into two groups. The Cylon baseships held back outside the effective range of the battlestars' artillery and lobbed hundreds of missiles, none of them nuclear (thank the gods) but still capable of damaging our ships, to keep our battlestars pinned. Five gunships and a cruiser hold back to defend them along with six hundred raiders, which was about a fifth the total raider fleet.

The second group divided into four squadrons of one cruiser and two gunships with six hundred of their own raiders. These squadrons were aiming for each side of the destroyer box formation. There was no way we could hold back those. Not while maintaining the flak wall. It was either deploy the battlestars to intercept the squadrons, jump, or be surrounded and cut off.

"Fleet status?" I demanded with a grunt.

"About half of the fleet has jumped!" Petty Officer Corinth replied.

"We need to circle the wagons and dig in," I announced. "Have the destroyers and _Artemis_ close into formation with our triangle! Move us into position to engage Battle Squadron One! _Pegasus_ and _Galactica_ will lead the charge! _Valkyrie_ , destroyers, and _Artemis_ will cover the rear!"

The triangle of battlestars "flipped" as the flat end, corners held by the two heaviest battlestars in my fleet, assumed the frontlines as the destroyers and _Artemis_ closed into close formation. The range is closed quickly and the main railgun batteries engage. _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ tore into the cruiser and its gunships like a pair of starving lions among sheep. The enemy squadron fired back but their smaller caliber railgun essentially bounced off the thick battle plating of the two heavy battlestars. Their missiles, when they hit, blacken the hulls but otherwise cause little damage. The raiders attempted to charge and blunt our offensive but flew into the overlapping firepits of combined point defense cannons. Those that survived are eaten alive by pairs and trios of Vipers backed with Raptor gunship support.

Battle Squadron One disappeared from the DRADIS and a heart-felt cheer raises as Lt. Burton reports its destruction. I didn't even smirk at us success, because things were going just as badly as I had expected them to. The other three battle squadrons are pressing into our rear. _Valkyrie_ and the destroyers flipped and brought their A-arcs to bear; Valkyrie in the classic broadside position and the destroyers facing head on.

Railgun cannons blazed with shot and shell as CIWS fire and Vipers shot forward to blunt the forward advance. One cruiser crumpled and broke apart under the intense fire of my flagship's main guns and the destroyers tore apart the cylon capital ship's escorts. The three other squadrons pressed in. Their railguns are few but their caliber is just as big as ours and they fire faster. Colonial warships were built like tanks but even the toughest tanks couldn't withstand the fierce massed fire we were facing.

The _Snarler_ broke in half as concentrated cannon fire broke her back and shredded her hull. The _Adriatic_ was awash in flames as Cylon raiders closed in and stripped her of weapons, DRADIS domes, comms towers, and everything else that was sticking out of the hull. _Valkyrie's_ armor plating was taking a beating. Many sections of her central armor were warning yellow on the damage control board and two of her main gun batteries were offline due to power failure and a jam in the ammo hoist respectively. The Cylon baseships were pressing in, concentrating their fire on _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_.

The writing on the wall was clear. This was not sustainable. We either left now or drowned in their numbers.

"Fleet status?!" I demanded harshly, caught in the stress of the battle.

"Last ships are jumping now!" Corinth reported.

"Recall vipers and prepare for synchronized jump! Tell them to land on _Galactica_ or _Pegasus_. Valkyrie will hold off the raiders!"

The order went out as the most dangerous phase of the battle went underway. As our vipers and raptors retreated the Cylons pressed in. Their raiders surged forward into our flak barrages, uncaring about the casualties. Two-thirds of them died in the haze of shrapnel and fire. The rest fired off every missile they carried at us as the cylon cruisers and gunships pressed in.

"Fuck!" I swore out loud as the icon for _Artemis_ disappeared. DRADIS went filled with static as the tylium-powered fusion power plant of the _Artemis_ exploded into a miniature star. A mayday started ringing out from the _Adriatic_ as her FTL drive was blasted offline by the Cylon cruisers.

"Viper and Raptor recall complete!" Lt. Burton yelled from the tactical station.

"Jump!" I ordered with a yell.

The inside-out feeling came and went. The DRADIS was clean of Cylons and filled with green. I was staring at the places where _Artemis_ , _Snarler_ , and _Adriatic_ were not. My face felt hot and my eyes felt like they were going to cry. In the final casualty count we'd lost twenty-nine vipers and thirty-three Raptors.

"We need to get ready for another jump," I said to the command crew of Valkyrie. "We had to leave Adriatic behind. The Cylons will no doubt board her and steal the jump coordinates from her computers."

"There's no way the Adriatic's crew would allow that," Sokolov said, her voice hard at the implications I'd intoned.

"We can't chance it," I replied back with steel girding my voice. "Order the fleet to prepare for a jump to next set of coordinates as soon as we can calculate it. How long will that take, Lieutenant Colonel?"

"About an hour if we do it safe. Thirty minutes of we do it fast," Sokolov replied.

"Then do it as fast as possible," I replied. I looked at P.O. Corinth and told him, "Peter, tell Galactica and Pegasus to get those vipers cycled ASAP. I want the military fleet ready for battle before the thirty minutes are up."

"And," I said as an afterthought, "tell Adama I want to talk to Doctor Amarak. Top encryption. Send the call to my quarters."

I was in my quarters downing two shots of what I assumed was vodka, or the Colonial version there of. I knew it was damned dangerous right now but I needed to take the edge off somehow. This was the most expedient way short of knocking out a crafty one, and I was too worked up for that and didn't have the time.

I checked the clock as the call was connected. I had about five minutes before the jump was finished calculating. I wanted to be in the CIC by then, and this needed to be a private conversation.

"Doctor Amarak," I said into the corded phone as soon as the line was open, "I'll be blunt. Do you have the coordinates for Earth?"

"Uhm… I'm not sure, Admiral," a nervous sounding Doctor Baltar answered me.

"What the frak!? Where is Amarak!?" I demanded.

"Doctor Amarak took a very nasty head wound during the battle. I'm in charge now apparently," Baltar stuttered.

"Frak!" I swore visciously. "Okay, can you point us to Earth or not?"

"I don't know, Admiral!" Baltar confessed, clearly on the verge of a melt down. "Doctor Amarak was taking care of that project and he's unconscious now and he didn't leave very many notes! I'm not sure I can piece them together any time soon!"

"Well you frakking better!" I growled. "Or I'm personally coming over to _Galactica_ and kicking your traitor carcass out the nearest airlock!"

I hung up and almost stormed off to the bridge, but didn't. I instead went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. I was angry, tired, and running on the high of angry emotions. I needed to cool off before I went in public again. I went for a third shot of Colonial vodka and was considering a fourth when the klaxons rang out.

"Action Stations! Action Stations! Set Condition One throughout the ship!"

I ran back to the CIC. The Cylons were back. I investigated later and found they'd jumped after us 33 minutes after we'd escaped, and now they had eight basestars, seven heavy cruisers, and twenty-one gunships.

I didn't bother fighting. We just ran. Ran as fast as our FTL drives could carry us. The cylons followed after us. Every 33 minutes, they were there on our heels.

The 33 Minute Chase had resumed.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17: The Road to Earth Pt. 2**

Three days passed with no sleep.

One hundred forty-two jumps with no relief.

Still the Cylon chased us through each one.

"Maybe this time," Lt. Colonel Amy Sokolov said to me in a whisper.

I said nothing. I just watched the clock and the DRADIS. Our civilian ships were already jumping out, but not fast enough for my taste. The DRADIS gave its ghostly moan as the sensors sweeped out into space. I slurped up my coffee from my mug and contemplated the mud-colored ring on the bottom. This was unsustainable. We hadn't lost any ships besides the _Snarler_ , _Adriatic_ , and _Artemis_ yet. Emphasis on the yet. Shipboard jump drives were already starting to suffer damage from overuse. Pilots were starting to get sloppy from fatigue and were getting pumped with stims.

"I don't think so," I whispered back at Sokolov as the last minute counted down. Fifty seconds. Then thirty seconds. Fifteen. Ten. Four... three... two... one!

The Cylon fleet jumped into DRADIS range. Eight basestars, seven heavy cruisers, and twenty-one gunships. The same damned fleet that'd been hounding us. Vipers were launched and flak fields were thrown up. The Cylon fleet pressed in as two groups. One group was the Basestars firing long range barrages of non-nuclear missiles and the other was battle squadrons of one cruiser and three gunships. The Basestars kept us pinned while the battle squadrons pressed in around the edges. The raider fleet was launched. Almost three thousand, five hundred fighters in all. They either closed in as part of the battle squadrons or as part of the Basestar vanguard.

"Not this time. Maybe next time," I whispered to my Colonel. I asked of the CIC crew, "Fleet status?"

"All civilian ships are away!" Lt. Burton replied.

"Jump us out!"

The military fleet jumped out in near unison just as the battle squadrons pressed in around us. We left them in our dust to regroup, reload, refuel, and recalculate our coordinates. Once again, the DRADIS was filled with green icons with no reds to be found.

"Start the clock," I ordered. "Let's prepare for the next cycle."

"Aye aye, Admiral," Lt. Burton replied. "Jump Prep for One-Four-Three is underway. Clock is running."

I glanced at the digital clock on the DRADIS console and glared at the numbers as they started running down. Thirty-three minutes to recoup and prepare. Barely enough time to prepare for the next jump.

Seven minutes into jump prep I was in a conference call between myself, Commanders Adama and Cain, and President Roslin. I was in my quarters for privacy and I assumed they were too, because the topic we discussed was as grave as it could be short of outright fatalism.

"Commander Adama," I said. "Has there been any progress in locating Earth? Has Doctor Amarak woken up?"

"No on both counts, sir," Adama replied. "Doctor Cottle says that he can't risk waking up Amarak without potentially killing him. Doctor Baltar has managed to track down the general direction of where the 13th Tribe went but only in broad strokes. We have no destination to go for."

"Have we managed to find out how the Cylons are tracking us?" President Roslin asked.

"No, Madam President," I replied. "We smashed every cylon device we had in our possession and searches of the civilian fleet has revealed no new devices. I'm going to give the order to search again."

"Is it possible that they're tracking our prisoners? Maybe they have some kind of transponder in them?" Roslin ventured.

"It's a possibility," Adama replied. "We could just shoot them and push the bodies out the airlock."

"No," I said quickly. "Let's not do anything hasty just yet. Start giving them MRIs. One at a time."

"Yes, sir," Adama replied.

"In the meantime," I continued, "We have to do something. We can't keep us this chase forever. Ships are breaking down and our people are already on edge."

"We could do what you did last time," Cain said. "Blunt their attack with one of our own."

I shook my head and said, "No. The Cylons have way too much of a tonnage advantage over us. We can't fight them."

"We're barely out-running them," Cain argued. "If we turn and fight while the civilian fleet jumps away then we might have a chance."

"Not much of one, but definitely a chance," Adama agreed.

"What do you say, Admiral?" Roslin asked.

I bit my lower lip and clenched my jaw tightly. If we were going to fight then now was the time. Every time we jumped we were going to be a little more tired. Our equipment was going to be a little more worn out. Humanity was on a death ride and I saw no way out of it. It was either die in a blaze of glory or die on our knees.

"No," I replied. "Not yet. We keep running. Keep putting the pressure on Baltar. Right now finding Earth is our best hope. After the next jump we start jumping in the general direction Doctor Baltar gives. We see how far we can get, and after that we make our stand. That's my orders."

"Aye aye, sir," Adama and Cain replied. Roslin said nothing. The call ended. I found myself wishing that there was a nebula we could hide in, or a particularly thick oort cloud. I also wished I had an excuse to abandon the Olympic Carrier but I had nothing. I had no reason to point fingers at that ship. Especially when I had other, more possible targets.

I took a shot of Colonial vodka against my better judgement. I relished the numbness of the alcohol on my mind as it mingled with my fatigue. I closed my eyes and felt myself drifting off into wonderful, sweet sleep.

"Admiral Wolfkill! Admiral! Alex wake up!"

I jolted awake and realized I was being shaken. I blinked and focused my eyes ahead, and followed the wall of blue up to the face of Lt Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, soaking wet. She looked pissed off and concerned at the same time.

"What the hell do you want?" I swore at her.

"I want you on your feet and in the CIC," she said, almost scolding. "And sober!"

"Fuck off," I scowled.

She slapped me. I sat in my chair, dazed from fatigue, the vodka, and shock. I refocused and glared at the Boomer angel.

"Fuck," I repeated. "Off."

"No," the Boomer angel replied. "You are needed in the CIC. Humanity needs you now more than ever."

"Then give me a fucking miracle!" I told her. "I can't just stand there and wait for the deus ex machina to pop out of the box again!"

"It's always darkest just before the dawn, Alexander Raines," She intoned. Her use of my last name sent chills through my back. "Your people need you in the CIC. Your ship needs you. If you give up, she will too."

I looked at the bulkheads and sputtered, "That's fucking ridiculous. The Valkyrie is just parts and machinery."

"I told you, _Valkyrie_ chose you," the Boomer angel repeated. "A ship like her is tied to her commander. They share spirits, hopes and intentions. If you give up now, so will _Valkyrie_. The Colonial Fleet will fall to Cain. What do you think she'll do with it?"

I didn't even have to consider it. I knew she'd make an epic last stand and take many of the Cylons with her into hell. The fleet following the one chasing us would have an easy time mopping up the civilian fleet as Roslin desperately tries to keep things together. End of game for mankind.

I breathed heavily and glared into the middle distance. I felt tired more than ever before, and yet I felt awake at the same time. Even if this was all me hallucinating and _Valkyrie_ really was just a mass of battle steel and composites, my CIC crew deserved to have me standing with them at my best before the end.

"Okay," I sighed, defeated. "Okay. I'll get to the CIC."

The Boomer angel nodded and patted my shoulder reassuringly. She gave me room to stand and I stood, checking the clock. Ten minutes until the next jump. I got changed into a new uniform and reported to the CIC.

Colonel Sokolov passed me a mug full of coffee, and I took it black as night and sweet as sin. I hated sweet coffee but in this case it was another thing to help keep me awake.

"Maybe this time," Sokolov said in a whisper.

"I don't think so," I almost replied, but bit it back. I counted down the minutes until they turned into seconds.

"Maybe," was what I said. "Maybe."


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18: The Road to Earth Pt. 3**

It was midnight aboard Battlestar _Valkyrie_. It was Day Four of the chase. It was sixteen minutes until the next jump.

"I think we've found the answer to our prayers," Amy said to me, pointing at a blotch of color on the print out of a star map. "Nebula of dust clouds and ionized gasses. They'll fowl up DRADIS like a bitch and putting out enough EM radiation that it'll scramble any FTL transmission the Cylons are putting out."

"And foul up our FTL computers," I replied. "We wouldn't be able to make a jump while we're inside it."

"But it means that the Cylons can't send out their jump capable scouts," Amy pointed out.

I smiled, "Good thinking, XO. If this works out I'll put in a good word with the admiral about putting you on the short list for commander."

"Gee, thanks," Amy smiled back at me.

"How many jumps until we get there?" I asked.

It was two jumps to reach the nebula. As we arrived I said with the grandiose voice of a showman, "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Niflheim!"

"Niflheim?" Amy asked incredulously. "Really?"

"The world of fog and mist," I replied. "Makes sense for a nebula of gas and dust."

We entered the Niflheim Nebula with _Valkyrie_ leading the charge. The last ship in, the destroyer _Concordia_ , reported seeing the Cylon fleet jump in after us, deploying raiders as they charged. We went up and to the left for an hour, then straight down for fifteen minutes. More random maneuvers to get us away from the Cylons and shake their tail. The fleet huddled dangerously close to keep DRADIS contact with each other.

At last we could sleep, and sleep we did. Two days passed with more of these random maneuvers to avoid the Cylon patrols. For my own power I managed to get six sporadic hours during the first night and a full night of seven hours on the second. After the second I finally got enough rest to feel human. I didn't dream during either of them, and I was happy for it.

On the third day of our voyage into the swirling expanses of Niflheim we encountered it.

"New contact at the edge of DRADIS!" Lt. Burton called out.

"Action Stations!" I ordered. "Set Condition One throughout the fleet! What are we looking at, Tactical Officer?"

"I… I don't know, sir," Burton replied. "It's not matching any ship in our warbook."

Sokolov and I shared a look.

 _Thirteen Tribe ship? Maybe a station?_

 _Maybe. Only one way to find out._

"Deploy the CAP to investigate," I ordered. "Hold alert vipers in the tubes. Set the Fleet to Condition Two. Can we get a camera on the frakker?"

"Working on it, sir," Burton replied.

With panic averted but still cautious, the two vipers and raptor of the Combat Air Patrol sallied forth towards the object. The fleet held position at extreme DRADIS range, meaning it was all but impossible for our cameras to get a clean image of it. DRADIS itself could only give us a blurry image of some kind H-shaped construct.

"Paladin," I said into my headset's mic, "Tell me what you're seeing."

"I'm seeing what looks like a ship, sir," the raptor pilot replied. "It's a big frakker too. Least as big as _Valkyrie_. Sir, I might be off my mark here, but this thing looks like a cylon ship but I'm barely getting any power readings. I think it's running on emergency batteries. Frak it, I'm calling it. This boat is a derelict Cylon Basestar."

The biggest grin covered my face. I felt like a kid who'd discovered Halloween, Easter, and Christmas had just been rolled together into one big toy and sugar fest. I said to my XO, "Colonel, I think we've got the chance to salvage some nice data and tylium from that lovely little derelict Cylon basestar."

"Seems so, sir," Lt. Colonel Sokolov replied with a slight smile of her own. "I suggest we get the marines moving and mobilize the engineers."

"Lieutenant Burton," I said, "Tell Major Ramirez and Chief Gunderson I want boarding parties and salvage crews ready to go aboard ASAP. Tell Adama I want Baltar and Simon on those teams too. Let's see if our resident Cylon and Cylon lover can get anything useful out of those computers."

Ninety-seven minutes later a dozen raptors and shuttles carrying marines launched from the _Valkyrie_ and _Pegasus_ towards the derelict Cylon baseship. The fleet news media was abuzz with speculation about how the ship had become adrift in the nebula and how long it'd been there, and why the Cylons hadn't come to reclaim the ship or destroy it. Unfortunately leaders didn't have the answer. Not yet, anyway. Against both Cain's and Adama's recommendation I moved the fleet to within ten thousand kilometers of the derelict in order to facilitate shorter travel times for the raptors and shuttles as well as getting a better picture of the ship.

Lt. Burton passed me the print outs of our ultra-high fidelity cameras. Even with the dust and the gas floating about, ten thousand klicks was close enough to get a damned good picture. The ship was definitely a cylon warship, and a small one at that. Bigger than their cruisers but smaller than their mainline baseships. I wondered if this was a limited run prototype that had never worked out. Maybe it had misjumped or something. I voiced that opinion to Amy.

"Maybe," she replied. "That would explain why it's here, but what happened to the crew? This nebula doesn't have the same EM properties as Ragnar."

"Maybe they jumped into the heart of the nebula and spent the last of their fuel trying to get out of here."

"Maybe," Amy nodded.

"Admiral," Lt. Burton interrupted. "Marines are entering the derelict now. Life support is still online, but that's it. No resistance so far."

"Let me know as soon as they find something interesting," I replied.

As it turns out, they did find something interest. Several things, actually. First of all, all of the Centurions were offline in their alcoves and maintbays. The cylons were out of power and effectively dead. That's what I understood and could comprehend. The second thing, I couldn't believe my ears the first time I heard it.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant," I said, apologetic and shocked by what i'd heard. "What did you say they found?"

"The marines found an old man whose lower half is all wiring and tubes in a tub of some kind of viscous white liquid, and he's asking to see you by name."

I think it's safe to assume I finally realized why the cylons hadn't recovered this ship, and why it was out here all alone.

The interior of the Guardian Baseship was as macabre as I recalled it being from the Razor movie. However instead of sweating my ass off I was freezing it off. Marines flanked me, two abreast in front and two in the back, all armed with heavy assault rifles and pulse grenades meant for frying Cylon MCPs. A FN Five-SeveN with attached explosive round launcher sat on my hip, and my chest was protected by a ceramic armored vest. We marched with a purpose through this ghost ship towards our quarry. Yet all this did not set me at ease as we got closer and closer to that thing that was the progenitor of the Bio-Cylon race.

The Hybrid was guarded by no less than six marines, all of whom were staring at the macabre thing that the Hybrid was. The wretched creature didn't look at me when it spoke, but I felt its eyes on me nevertheless.

"And so the Chosen One comes to the Oracle to seek wisdom and guidance for the final confrontation," it said. "Welcome, Admiral Wolfkill."

"Hello," I replied. "How do you know my name?"

"I saw it written in the stars. The winds of fate carried your name to my ear and so many other things."

"What kind of things, Hybrid?" I asked it.

Now it looked at me. It asked, "Do you want to be forgiven, Alexander?"

"What do I have to be forgiven about?"

"For running away from your responsibilities. For squandering the precious gift of life you had been given."

I frowned and said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes you do. You've merely chosen to forget it," the Hybrid replied.

I blinked and shook my head slightly. Fatigue and stress made this encounter feel even more surreal and crazy. Here I was, talking to a creature that was half man, half machine and rambling.

"Marines," I said, "Move out. You've got better things to do than guard this corpse."

"Sir?" the sergeant in charge asked.

"Do as I say, Sergeant Baker," I said softly but with force of authority.

When the marines left I got down on my haunches and looked at the Hybrid, eye-to-eye on the same level.

"Okay, Hybrid," I said. "Let's talk, mano a mano. What the hell happened to me? How am I here? Who put me here? What am I doing here?"

"You are the Valkyrie's chosen bounty. You are the bannerman of the Gods of Kobol. The man who was chosen to rise from normality into the realm of heroes, to stand against the Darkness and save mankind from extinction."

"Okay," I nodded. "That doesn't really help me but okay."

"You are a Nimbus of Light in an ocean of darkness. You are the Hammer of Thor stri-"

"Yeah I get it," I replied, holding up a hand to stop him. "Chosen One. Savior of mankind. The usual cliches. Tell me something useful. Like how to get to Earth. Where is the Colony?"

"The Heart of Darkness rests in the Eye of Oblivion. Find it. Kill it. End the Cycle."

"The Colony is at a black hole. I know that. Which black hole? Give me coordinates. Give me something!"

The Hybrid blinked and refocused one me. It said, "You will find Earth. You will reunite the Human Race. You will stop the Cylons from destroying all life in this galaxy."

"Why, because it's my destiny?" I said snidely.

The Hybrid said nothing. It merely closed its eyes and never opened them back up ever again.

Colonel Sokolov met me on the flight deck as I returned from the Guardian baseship.

"How was your trip?" she asked.

I stalked past her, making a B-line for my quarters.

"So I'm guessing the talk with the Cylon's prisoner didn't go so well?" she asked again, keeping pace.

"Go away, Amy," I said.

And so I went to my quarters and brooded like a petulant child. I felt like I wanted to throw my things at the wall. I wanted to scream out my rage until I ran out of breath. I wanted to puke out the spiders that were crawling in my guts until all the bad things went away. I wanted someone, anyone, to come and take this burden from me.

Instead I got out my sidearm and put it to my head.

"Lords of Kobol," I said, breathing ragged. "Or whoever the fuck put me here, I think it's time for some answers. Or I'm going to blow my own brains out and to hell with the consequences."

It was then that the intercom decided to chime.

For a moment I stood in place considering if I should just pull the trigger, before lowering the gun and all but slamming on the button.

"What."

"Admiral!" Petty Officer Corinth called out over the line, "I have a Priority One message from Galactica. Commander Adama says that Doctor Amarak is awake, and he says he know where Earth is."

I stood still for a moment before sighing deeply and putting down the gun.

"Copy," I said with a long sigh. "I'll be right with you."

As I stowed my weapon, my eyes caught on my Hammer of Thor as it glinted merrily on its hook, almost as if it were taunting me.

"You fracking son of a bitch."


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19: The Road to Earth Pt. 4**

A conference of the Colonial leadership was held aboard the _Galactica_ under maximum security. This close to the finish line paranoid was the watch word. I, President Roslin, and Commanders Cain and Adama were in the war room with Lt. Gaeta, some limited _Galactica_ personnel, and Doctor Amarak.

"Here," Doctor Amarak said, "this is where Earth is."

The five of us looked at where he pointed on the astronomical map. The nebula were we were hiding in was on one end, taking up a quarter or so of it. The marker drawn X that denoted the presence of Earth was on the other side.

"That," I said, "is a long way to go."

"Two hundred thirteen point seven light years," Amarak said, "it's going to be a while to get there, but it's there. I promise you that."

"It'd better be," Adama said. "That's the extreme range of our fuel reserves. By the time we got there we'd be running on fumes. We'll have enough for two more jumps at max and then that's it."

"Could we send a raptor to scout ahead?" Roslin offered.

Gaeta shook his head, "That's far out of a raptor's effective range. Even with extra fuel pods they wouldn't be able to make it back."

"They could broadcast on Wireless the All Clear?" I said, to which Cain shook her head.

Cain said, "The Cylons would detect the transmission and know where we're going. They'll set up an ambush and blow us up before we could jump out."

Damn it how had I missed that?

"What about the _Phantasm_? She's a stealth ship, right?" Amarak asked. "We could send her and a tanker to go check out the place and come back."

"We don't know if the Cylons are tracking either of those ships," Cain replied. "And in order to get them there and back we'd have to start syphoning fuel from the rest of the Fleet. I'll bet you hard cubits that we won't have enough to reach the planet, let alone defend ourselves."

I ran my fingers through my hair and breathed in deeply, then pinched the bridge of my nose. The plan came to me in a wave of cold logic.

"Admiral, do you have something to add?" President Roslin asked, looking at me like a Teacher expecting an answer from a troublesome student.

"Yes, I do," I replied quietly. "If you approve, Madam President, I'll take the _Valkyrie_ and jump to the coordinates. If Earth is there, we'll get help from the Thirteenth Tribe. If the Cylons are tracking _Valkyrie_ then she'll be able to defend herself until we get there, and defend herself until we make contact and convince the Thirteenth that we need help. If we succeed we'll come back for you. If not…" I swallowed. "If not, then command of the Military Fleet will fall to Commander Adama, and you guys go somewhere else."

"That's a one way trip," Adama said. "We're not exactly swimming in military hardware."

"I know," I replied, "but one of the destroyers and the _Phantasm_ are too soft for a mission like this, and _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ are too valuable to lose. _Valkyrie_ is the last ship standing."

"You are also valuable, Admiral," Cain said. She meant it even if it was through gritted teeth. "This is a mission for a subordinate to take over."

I shook my head. "Not this time, Commander. Not this time. _Valkyrie_ is my ship, and this is my plan. If we weren't hurting for personnel I'd make this a volunteers-only mission for the crew. As is, i'll only be taking one squadron of fighters with no raptors. The rest go to _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_."

"What do you say, Madam President?" Adama asked.

Roslin looked at me straight in the eye. I didn't flinch. I wondered if she saw the suicidal thoughts that had been flying through my mind only hours before. Saw the secret desire to give up this responsibility and cast off the burden of leadership.

Evidently she didn't, as she said, "Alright, Admiral. You have my permission."

I nodded and said, "Thank you, Madam President. The time you see me I'll have an armada behind me. Otherwise I'll see you all in Hell."

The next three days were spent preparing _Valkyrie_ for the suicide mission to Earth, more to give our people time to rest and prepare than anything else. Within the first day we had the work finished. The FTL drive was in as close to prime condition as could be. All but a squadron of Vipers were offloaded to the _Pegasus_ and the _Galactica_. We kept the nukes though. As much as I argued we should offload them I was shot down whole heartedly by my subordinates. _Valkyrie_ would need them to hold the line for however long she could.

I had no more weird dreams or visits by the Boomer Angel during that time. They passed with a semblance of normalcy, but it was a fake one. It was merely the calm before the storm. By the end we'll have found Earth or we'd be dead. Either way, it'd be the end of this long chase.

At the end of the third day of preparation I gave the order for _Valkyrie_ to break away from the fleet and exit the nebula. It was then that I revealed our mission to the crew at large.

"All hands," I said into the mic, broadcasting my voice all across the _Valkyrie_ , "this is the Admiral. We have left the fleet and now I may reveal to you the reason for the activity you've taken part of for the last few days."

I paused for breath and to consider my next words carefully. "We've found Earth. She's about two hundred light years away, which puts her at the extreme range of our fuel reserves. Because of that and the fact the Cylons are still chasing us, _Valkyrie_ will be scouting ahead to get aid from Earth while the Fleet hides in this nebula. If we succeed, we'll have saved humanity. There is no room for failure now."

That was a big dark. I needed to give them something to be hopeful about. I said, "You have all done extraordinary work in the past nine months. Nobody can ask more of you than what you've already done. If I had my way you all would be receiving medals and honors among the greatest heroes of our history. As is, all I can do is promise you that our struggle will be over soon, one way or another. So say we all."

"So say we all," was murmured and said throughout the CIC with varying levels of conviction. Sokolov gave me an inquiring look but I told her no with my eyes. They had a right to be hesitant. After so long without hope and being chased it was a strange and alien feeling to know it was almost over. I hoped that Earth would be all it was cracked up to be. I wanted to live up to my word of coming back with an armada of Thirteenth Tribe warships at my back, and there was only one way to get them.

"Colonel," I said with heavy gravity in my voice, "take us out of the nebula. Navigation, I want us ready to begin jump plot as soon as we're out in open space. CAG, prepare to launch a combat patrol as soon as we're clear."

It took the better part of a day to reach the edge of the nebula. _Valkyrie_ burst out like a shark from hiding among a coral reef. Two flights of two vipers hung on our flanks, ready to defend their mothership with guts and guns. The DRADIS and other sensors of of the slender battlestar searched for signs of contact.

"We've emerged from the nebula," Lt. Burton reported. "Looks clear as far as the eye can see."

"Start the clock," I ordered. "Begin jump prep."

It was a tense, quiet 33 minutes. No cylon patrols stumbled upon us. It would have been peaceful if it weren't for the tense atmosphere. When the 33 minutes came and went. No cylons showed up.

"Something's wrong here," I said quietly to Sokolov. "We either aren't being tracked or something's changed."

"Like what?" Amy asked.

"Well like I said: either we aren't being tracked, or something's changed," I said. "Worst case scenario is that they've found Earth first and are currently bombing it back to the stone age."

"That's a scary thought," Sokolov mused.

"Yeah," I replied. "Maybe… Hopefully… I'm just being paranoid."

Sokolov nodded. "What do we do if you're not?"

"Then we fight like hell," I said.

The next 33 minutes came and went. Still no cylons. There's only so tense and worried you could get before you become crippled by paranoia, so I breathed normally, oversaw the operations of my battlestar, and drank coffee.

I'd finished the last of my thermos as we approached our last jump. By now we'd started picking up artificial radio signals from the target solar system. It was heartening but still I was worried. Where were the Cylons? Was Earth truly under attack?

"Anything on Wireless?" I asked Petty Officer Corinth.

The comm officer shook his head. "No, sir. All's quiet."

Maybe I was being overly paranoid about this, but that wasn't a good sign. While Wireless is different from the jump drive, it was still worrying as one might've been an indicator of a lack for the other. If Earth was just modern Earth then we were well and truly frakked.

Lacking any other options to roll the dice in my favor, I prayed.

 _Lords of Kobol hear my prayer. Please, please let this be the promised land we've been hoping for._

I left it at that, not seeing hyperbole or hollow promises as a way to do anything other than make myself look weak and ineffective. A simple request was all it was.

"We're ready for the last jump, Admiral," Colonel Sokolov reported.

"Execute jump," I ordered.

We jumped into the outer system, well out of the way of any planet, asteroid, or any other celestial body, and we looked and listened. We found armageddon in progress.

"Sir!" Corinth reported. "We're getting distress signals on all radio bands! We can't understand the language but they're definitely distress signals."

"Let's hear it," I said.

Screams filled the radio. Screaming and the babble of people begging for aid and only finding chaos answering their calls. The words were unintelligible to my ears but they were indeed distress calls.

"Admiral! You need to see this!" Lt. Burton called out to me. He put up a still image captured from one of Valkyrie's long range showed a planet. That planet had blue oceans, green and tan continents, and white clouds. Outlined against that beautiful imagery were silver and grey four pointed stars. It was only when I noticed the baseships that I saw the mushroom clouds appearing on the planet's surface.

"Oh my gods," Sokolov gasped. "We're too late."


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20: The Battle for Earth Part 1**

The words stung like a salt infused needle. The Cylons had gotten here before us. They'd gotten here before us and they were in the process of exterminating the population. Just like in the Colonies.

"No," I said quietly, then shouted. "No! Not like this! Not frakking like this!"

The command crew looked at me with hopeless eyes. Even Sokolov was shaken to her core. Suddenly I was in the spotlight again and I felt like I was on fire.

"We're not letting it end like this!" I told them. "They beat us here, yes, but they haven't won yet! There are still people out there that need us! Stand to your duties! We can do this!"

"B-but what _can_ we do?" Burton asked, clearly losing his nerve.

"We have guns! We have planes! We have the high ground! They don't know we're here. We deploy raptor scouts and examine the battlefield, then strike at the heart of the enemy!" I looked around and ordered, "Set Condition One throughout the ship!"

There was a moment of hesitation, of confusion, then Sokolov growled, "Y'all gone deaf or something? You heard the admiral! Set Condition One throughout the ship!"

Like that they sprung into action, if only on muscle memory. Within a few minutes the ship was battle ready. More importantly, it gave me time to think.

"All sections report Condition One, sir," Sokolov said to me.

I replied, "Good. Let's start by getting an idea of what we're dealing with. Send the raptors to scout the planetary bodies and get the telescopes tracking. Be quick about it. Minutes are everything for us."

As it turned out this solar system was pretty much the solar system from back home. I don't know if it was an exact replica, but the planets were there. The first examination of the Solar System made me almost think we were in The Expanse because of all of the space colonies across the system and the heavy colonization the Mars-expy had, but the ships and signals didn't match.

"Looks like the main fight is taking place over Earth," Sokolov said, passing me a print-out image of the blue, green, and white planet. "Looks like the Cylons and the Thirteenth Tribe are fighting hard, with five baseships plus escorts here but the Thirteenth has a lot of small ships present. It could go either way. The second is over the barren planet, but it looks like the Cylons are going to win it with four baseships. The third fight is going on over this dwarf planet located between the barren world and the largest gas giant. There's only one baseship there but they're tearing through the defenses."

I identified the dwarf planet Ceres. As the gateway to the Belt and the Outer Planets it made sense that the Cylons were going out of their way to attack it assuming that the Thirteenth Tribe didn't have a jump drive. I rubbed the back of my neck as I considered my options. I didn't exactly have a lot of Vipers on hand and the only other two battlestars in existence might as well be on the other side of the universe. I had to hope and pray that the Thirteenth had tylium, and that those refineries survived long enough for me to fuel up my ships.

Right now, perhaps more than ever, I wished my flagship had been _Pegasus_. _Pegasus_ was a monster of a warship with enough guns, nukes, and armor to weather this kind of storm. _Valkyrie_ wasn't a true battle wagon like _Pegasus_ , or even _Galactica_. She was more like an upgunned escort ship meant for covert operations and fleet support operations. Between that and only one squadron of fighters it looked like whatever I did would just get us killed, but I couldn't wait this out. _Valkyrie_ needed to be in this battle. If we waited for _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ to show up we might not be able to save Earth, let alone Mars, Ceres, and the rest of the colonies out here.

"We only have one real option," I replied. "We go to Earth and start pumping out as many bullets and nukes as possible into those Cylon Baseships as we can, and hope we don't get trapped in a Raider or missile storm."

"That's a one way trip," Sokolov said, to which I nodded in agreement.

I said, "I know. Worst case, we die, but we'll have hopefully tipped the odds in Earth's favor. _Pegasus_ and _Galactica_ can clean up at Mars and the rest of the solar system, but Earth is where the battle for this solar system will be decided."

Sokolov gave me a puzzled look. "Mars, sir?"

 _Shit_. I did it _again_.

"The barren planet," I said, pointing at it. "Figure we've got to call it something. Why not Mars?"

Sokolov nodded, seemingly mollified. "Okay. It's your plan, sir. On your order."

I felt a sharp annoyance at my XO's lack of support for my plan. She was my second-in-command. Yeah she was supposed to voice alternatives but she was supposed to have my back at all times, and it didn't feel like she did right now. I hated the uncertainty it placed in my mind as it eroded my self-confidence.

"Do you have any alternative plans?" I asked with a bit more acidic bite than was probably necessary.

"Wait for the rest of the Fleet to arrive," Sokolov offered.

"It'll be almost a day before they show up," I replied. "We can't wait a day. We go now or not at all."

Sokolov nodded. "Then let's do it."

That was probably the best I was going to get. I nodded in turn and said, "We should let the crew know. If we die today, they deserve to know why."

Sokolov gave her support eagerly for that and opened the ship-wide comms. I took up the corded phone and considered my words, thinking about what I wanted to say before saying, "Enlisted and officers of the _Valkyrie_ , this is the Admiral. We have arrived in the Earth solar system. We have found the Thirteenth Tribe, but they are under attack by the Cylons. By all accounts it is a full on assault and the Cylons have already started dropping nukes on the planet. This ship will be jumping into the fight momentarily."

I wondered if I should say more, then said with certainty and a steel-like resolve, "We could wait, or we could run. Those would definitely be the smarter options. Either wait for the rest of the fleet to arrive to back us up or just keep running while the Cylons are distracted. I say those are the easy options. I say those are the roads to a long death and extinction! All of you deserve to be hailed as heroes of the species. In the past nine months you've done more than has ever been asked of warriors, and because of that I am proud to be your Admiral. You and I have walked through hellfire and brimstone to get here. I ask you to fight with me through the flames one last time. Now, more than ever, is our biggest chance to hit back at the Cylons. To once again remind them that the war was not lost at the Colonies. To avenge our loved ones and to carve a path to the future where our children life free and without fear! If we die today we die the deaths of heroes, and I shall see you all in Elysium. One way or the other."

And so I took us into the Mouth of Hell.

The cylons were either overconfident or weren't expecting us to show up. When _Valkyrie_ jumped in on their rearward flank there was nothing between our guns and their backs but open space.

"Jump complete!" Lt. Burton reported. "We caught them napping!"

So we did. The question was how much we could make of it. The Cylon battle fleet consisted of five baseships, four cruisers, and ten escort gunships. Not exactly a lot but they didn't have a lot to fight with. There were thirty-seven terran warships present but the biggest was barely the size of the Valkyrie, and resembled a flying plate of steel more than a starship and the rest were varying degrees of flying bricks. There were about four hundred or so terran fighters in the air but they were outnumbered by a magnitude of seven. The Cylon raiders were being barely held back with the missiles of the baseships not far behind their failing defense lines. Interesting, according to DRADIS they were using directed energy weapons instead of railguns. It wasn't doing them a lot of good, though.

Still, they were putting up one hell of a fight. Time for _Valkyrie_ to tip the odds.

"Launch vipers!" I ordered. "Defensive Formation Alpha! Main battery target Castle One! I want a nuclear strike on Castle Two and Three! Execute now, now, _now!"_

The single viper squadron carried launched from the flight pods and took up a defensive formation around _Valkyrie_ , prepared to intercept any missiles or raiders that got past the point defense screen. Valkyrie rotated on her X-axis so that most of her guns were pointing at the first baseship and opened fire immediately. Dozens of shells focused in on the central spire of the main baseship, digging into the hull before exploding. Within three volleys the ship had a large hole in her mid-section and was rotating to bring her undamaged side to bear. Valkyrie's twelve missile tubes, six on the bow and six just behind the alligator head, opened and fired off their 25 kiloton warheads. With no point defenses of their own and no raiders flying escort the missiles struck home. Six missiles per baseship brought 150 kilotons of nuclear firepower total on to Castle Two and Three. Castle Two exploded twice, first from the nuclear detonations and again from the tylium and munitions being touched off. Alas the Cylons weren't all bunched up so the debris floated harmlessly into space. Castle Three didn't follow suit but it was still badly damaged and rendered combat ineffective.

"Two down, two to go," Sokolov commented to me, then Castle One jumped out. "Make that three."

We had their attention now. Two cruisers and two escort gunships broke off their attack along with a force of a hundred raiders. They vectored in on _Valkyrie_ and painted her with targeting sensors. They approached as one group, supporting each other so that we would have to fight them all at once.

"Time until we can jump out?" I asked.

"Twenty-two minutes, sir," Lt. Burton reported.

 _Gods of war protect us_ , I intoned mentally as battle was joined. I ordered, "Reload those missile tubes with flechette rounds! I want nukes ready to fire after that!"

We had two saving graces that kept us from dying that day. First was that the Cylons has quite a distance to go before they entered gun range. Second was that the gunship escorts and cruiser didn't have a lot of missile weapons, and the Baseship was too busy keeping the terrans pinned down to engage us. If I was right then we could probably survive this. Probably.

"Flechette missiles loaded, sir!" Lt. Burton announced as the Cylons entered maximum effective gun range.

"Very good," I ordered, not missing a beat. "Bring us CBDR and accelerate to flank speed! Standby to fire flechette missiles as follows: forward launchers target the gunships, ventral launchers target the fighters! Vipers to attack enemy fighters after missiles detonate!"

The crew scrambled to follow my orders. _Valkyrie_ spun on a dime in space and lit off her plasma engines once her red painted nose was pointed towards the incoming enemies. Even as the missiles fired off and the protective screen of vipers flew off to engage the raiders I was thinking of how to handle the cruisers. Each was about eighty percent of the tonnage of the _Valkyrie_ and traded armor and fighters for more guns and a few missile launchers. One to one we'd kick their asses no probably, but with two of them, plus the problem that we might not kill the escort gunships, meant this was going to get extremely bloody.

"Missiles away!" Burton announced.

"Vipers away!" Sokolov said.

"Guns," I said, "target Cruiser Two. Helm, point us nose to nose with Cruiser One and give me full speed!"

"Sir, please confirm," the navigation officer asked. "You want us to ram them?"

"Frack that!" I said. "I want to see that bastard blink! Standby to break off on my mark!"

The missiles struck home and blasted hundreds of holes in the escort gunships. Flechette missiles weren't designed to blow up ships so much as destroy hardpoints like gun turrets and DRADIS arrays. Against a thin skinned escort like the Cylon gunships they overpenetrated and shredded their internals. Hundred of gallons of red liquid floated in boulder-sized globs from the open wounds in the ships as they drifted forward on their own initial. The second wave of missiles struck home before the Cylons knew what was happening, and their close formations of fighters disintegrated.

" _Good hit,_ Valkyrie _!"_ Red Team's Raptor ECO reported. " _Looking at sixty-plus casualties. Red Team engaging now!"_

I didn't even nod to acknowledge as the cruisers and _Valkyrie_ began trading gunfire. The Cylon cruisers were built like fat needles with stubby wings and their guns orientated forward. The _Valkyrie's_ railguns were all around her and aiming everywhere. If anything forward was her weakest arc, but it wasn't firepower I was after.

"Cruiser One is attempting to evade! Cruiser Two is opening fire!" Lt. Burton reported, and _Valkyrie_ shuddered violently as the railgun slugs the size of small cars hit home. Green panels turned worrying yellow and in a few cases a dangerous orange. The lights flickered but I kept my nerve and my feet. I stared up at the DRADIS at the icons representing my ship and Cruiser One as the Valkyrie closed the range worryingly fast.

"Reload status for forward missiles?" I asked.

"Reloaded, sir!" Lt. Burton replied.

"Target Cruiser Two and fire!" I ordered.

The six forward facing missile tubes flushed with smoke and propellent as the warheads flew away. They didn't have far to travel and struck home, blasting the front half of the ship into bits and causing the cruiser to buck as secondary explosions rocked her interior.

"We're within one thousand kilometers of Cruiser One and closing!" Lt. Burton called out.

"Break off once we're within three hundred klicks but keep flying forward!" I ordered. "Once we break head for the last Basestar! Prepare another nuclear strike on the forward tubes!"

I was cutting it extremely close in starships combat terms. Valkyrie was practically trading paint with the cruiser at three hundred kilometers, but we made a clean break. The Cylon cruiser was so busy accelerating away that her guns didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of hitting us. It bought us precious minutes as we closed range with the last baseship.

"CAG, status?" I barked into the Wireless.

" _Lost Dusty and Corn but we're still alright, sir!"_ the CAG replied. " _We're mopping up the last of these toasters!"_

"Break off and regroup with Valkyrie," I ordered. "Execute combat landings for reload and refuelling."

" _Aye aye, sir!"_

"Range to target?" I asked Lt. Burton.

"We're at fifteen thousand kilometers and closing!" Burton called out. "We'll be within range in seven minutes!"

And then two things happened. The first thing that happened was that the last baseship and the remaining Cylon ships jumped out of the combat zone. A ragged cheer broke out, and I joined it with a triumphant fist pump. The Cylons were doing exactly what I wanted them too. Unfortunately, that also meant they were doing exactly as I expected them to do. According to long range DRADIS the Cylons were regrouping around the moon, which had been blasted clean of human presence. According to DRADIS there were five basestars, five cruisers, and eighteen escort gunships regrouping there along with what was probably a resupply ship. We'd bought Earth some time and rescued twenty-two of their warships, but we hadn't won the battle just yet. What was worse, only one of their heavy capital ships were left still standing. We'd won the battle, but the war was far from over.

 _But we're getting there. We're definitely getting there._

Now I just had to figure out how to coordinate a defense with people who didn't speak my language before the Cylons attacked again. Somehow fighting the Cylons seemed much less stressful.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21: The Battle for Earth Part 2**

"Get me a priest," I commanded.

Lt. Burton and Colonel Sokolov fixed me with queer looks.

"We don't have all day, get to it!" I barked. Burton got to work, so I looked at Sokolov and said, "Start getting tactical assessments of the Thirteenth Tribe ships ASAP."

Sokolov nodded and got me what I wanted before the priest arrived.

The biggest warship was, as I said before, looked more like a flying plate of steel than a warship in terms of length and mass. She was obviously a battlestar-analogue because she was armed with a multitude of heavy cannons and missile launchers, as well as a large number of hangar bays along her port and starboard sides. There was a small bulge in the upper hull from which sensor and comms towers sprouted up, but as far as I could tell there were no windows to be seen aboard her. Alas there was only one of her, or I might have started doing foolish things like thinking things might be looking up for us. This largest warship was pretty beat up but she was still flying and had most of her armor.

Six of the remaining twenty-two warships some kind of cruiser analogue orientated around eight large forward missile launchers and a pair of heavy cannons. She was only about four hundred and fifty meters long but she was thickly armored and had a lot of potential speed in her. All of them were in varying states of heavy damage and would need to be babysat.

Four of the remaining Thirteenth Tribe warships were three hundred meter long, wedge-shaped spacecraft built around a pair of medium railguns mounted on the bow with the center made up of VLS tubes. Unlike the cruisers these ships were more or less in good condition. I suspected that was because they were thinly armored and didn't last long against the raider swarms and missile barrages.

A whopping eleven ships were the same three hundred meter long, wedge shaped destroyers but their cannons and VLS tubes were replaced with rank upon rank of CIWS rotary guns. Like their guided missile destroyer counterpart they were in remarkably good condition, but I worried as to their ammunition stores. They'd no doubt been in combat for hours if not days, so their munitions were probably low.

So one fleet carrier, six guided missile cruisers, four guided missile destroyers, and eleven flak destroyers. Plus about three hundred fighters that were a bit bigger than Vipers and dead ringers for Hammerheads from Space: Above and Beyond. It made me wonder what twisted sense of humor the ROB who put me here had. It was too much of a coincidence to be… well, a coincidence.

"Sir," Lt. Burton said, getting my attention from the print-outs and reports of the Thirteenth Tribe ships. "This is Father Forthill, the priest you asked for."

The name struck me as oddly familiar, and I looked at him. Father Forthill had brilliant blue eyes framed by gold-rimmed spectacles. He was about medium height and build. As I looked at him I blinked and felt like I was seeing a ghost.

"I'm sorry, Anthony Forthill?" I asked.

"Yes, that's my name, Admiral," Father Forthill said. "Have we met before?"

Great. Not only was I in some kind of Battlestar Galactica spin-off, I was in one with a walking, talking Dresden Files reference in it.

"We probably have, Father," I replied. "Just remembering another Anthony Forthill. May I assume you speak Old Gemenese?"

"Yes, Admiral," Forthill nodded. "It's a requirement of the priesthood, given the Sacred Scrolls are written in Old Gemenese."

"Perfect," I said with a smile. "I need you to translate for me. I'm assuming that those ships will have someone onboard who can speak Old Gemenese as well. I need you to translate for me."

"I'll do my best, Admiral," Father Forthill said.

I nodded at him and processed my thoughts. I'd forgotten to consider how to plan with the 13th Tribe while relying an old language that they probably didn't speak. My whole plan relied on them having a priest onboard who spoke their version of Old Gemenese, but what choice did I have? Without coordination we'd lose as we were defeated in detail. Not for the first time I wished I had the whole battle fleet here with me, or that my command was _Galactica_ or _Pegasus_.

I had Father Forthill given a headset and we began our attempt.

"Let's start with something simple," I said. "Tell them, 'hello. We are of Kobol.'"

The Father conveyed my message in Old Gemenese. We waited oppressive minutes for a reply, and when it came I had it played over the loudspeakers. The voice was that of a woman's and spoke in halting, carefully accented words.

" _Salut. Vă întâmpinăm pe Pământ."_

"They said," Forthill announced, "'Hello. Welcome to Earth.'"

I had a wide smile on my face as I declared, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have made contact with the Thirteenth Tribe!"

Cheers rose and fell and I breathed a sigh of relief. All we needed to do now was to coordinate a battle plan and we had a chance to hold out against the Cylons until the rest of the Colonial Fleet arrived.

"Father," I said once the cheering died down, "tell them that we want to coordinate a battle plan for the Cylons."

It was only as Forthill was conveying the message that I realized that the 13th Tribe had no context for what the Cylons were, and hoped that they could pick up on the fly and would wait for the length explanations. I made a mental side note to have Simon come up with some kind of translation software to help with communications in the future.

It took almost an hour to come up with our combined battle plan, but we managed to pull it off. By the end of that hour the _Valkyrie_ was flying alongside the 13th Tribe fleet and we were cruising at sublight speeds towards the Cylon battle group. It was a fairly basic formation all things told. the fleet carrier flew side-by-side in the center, forming a triangle around our midsection was the guided missile cruisers and missile destroyers. The flak destroyers formed a rough sphere around this motley formation. Pairs and quads of Earth fighters flew patrol around and in the ship formation to intercept any surprise raider jumps. Valkyrie flew next to this formation. It was a minor part of the plan but it helped sow the seeds of disinformation among the enemy, making them think we hadn't been able to formulate a plan besides "fly at the enemy and shoot them."

"Cylons are reacting!" Lt. Burton reported. "They're sending seven squadrons, ten escort gunships, and one basestar at us. Everything else is holding formation by the moon."

"Very good," I said with a moderate amount of enthusiasm. This was what I expected the Cylons to do. Unfortunately that didn't make things any easier. "Standby for FTL jump. Weapons, prepare to launch a nuclear strike."

"Nuclear strike at the ready, sir!" Lt. Burton reported. "Ship's ready for jump at your mark."

I breathed in a large breath and placed a hand on my holstered pistol, then said, "Execute FTL jump!"

A flash of light and a flare of exotic radiation came and went, and _Valkyrie_ relocated.

"Jump complete!" Burton reported. "DRADIS back on line!"

We'd appeared next to the moon, barely twenty thousand kilometers away from the Cylon fleet.

"Right where we wanted to be," Sokolov said.

"Target the resupply ship and fire the nuke!" I ordered as fast as my mouth could form the words. "All batteries standby defensive fire!"

The cylons, despite their lightspeed reflexes and inhuman intellect, didn't have the time to react. The nuclear missile launched on a puff of gas, orientated towards the cylon fleet, and fired off its engines. The few cylon raiders on patrol tried to vector in on it and the flak batteries on the cruisers tried to shoot it down. The missile blasted past the flak and the raiders and hit the supply ship. The thin skinned support ship was enveloped by the nuclear fireball and then exploded as munitions and tylium were touched off.

"Reading total destruction of enemy supply ship!" Lt. Burton reported.

"Thirteen Tribe ships and breaking their acceleration and turning away," Colonel Sokolov said.

"Time until we can FTL jump again?" I asked.

"Thirteen minutes, sir," Burton replied, then said, "Cylons are targeting us! Missiles are in the air! Raiders incoming!"

"All batteries defensive fire!" I ordered.

Point defense fire filled the void between Valkyrie and the cylon fleet. They obviously didn't take kindly to me blowing up their supply ship. The baseships fired every missile tube they had and launched all their raiders. The cruisers orientated to hit up on our flanks with their railguns and missiles, as did the remaining escort gunships. I didn't bother ordering Red Squadron launched. They would be lost and die in the tsunami of incoming raiders.

Literally and practically, all I could do was stand, wait, and watch as the cylons vectored into attack position.

"Cylon cruisers are entering gun range!" Burton announced. "They're firing!"

Cylon railguns spat shells of depleted uranium and tungsten at my battlestar. The _Valkyrie_ shook under the impact. Armor crumpled and was battered away. The few remaining green sections turned worrying yellow and more than one yellow section turned dangerous red.

"Return fire on those cruisers!" I ordered. "Time to jump?"

"Seven minutes!"

 _Valkyrie's_ railguns reorientated to target the nearest cruiser and switched from flak rounds to anti-ship shells. They spat death at the thin skinned warships. One of them broke off their assault and blinked out in an FTL jump. The other four pressed the attack. The red sections started blinking as more reds appeared.

"We've got multiple hull breaches on Deck One and Seven!" Burton called out. "We're losing atmosphere! Raiders are closing in!"

The urge to shout "launch vipers!" came and I fought it down. They'd die pointless deaths and their sacrifice wouldn't save my ship. The red blips representing whole squadrons of raiders pressed in around the green dot that was _Valkyrie_. They opened fire. Hundreds of raiders times hundreds of missiles that, while individually small, were deadly to warships when fired en masse.

Valkyrie trembled continuously as hundreds of missiles found their mark. Weapons batteries all over the ship started blinking red as they were destroyed. The DRADIS array went glitchy as sensor dishes were destroyed.

"Frak it we can't wait any longer!" I declared. "Jump us now!"

"Sir if we jump now we'll overload the jump coils!" Lt. Burton yelled.

"Do it!" I yelled, my resolve breaking as my ship broke

The key was inserted and turned. I felt my guts twist and turn inside out as we jumped.

"Did we make it?" I asked as ominous silence took hold over the ambience.

"We made it," Burton reported. "We're back in close orbit of Earth!"

Sokolov, who had a corded phone to her ear, put it down and looked at me. She said, "Engineering reports that FTL coils are fried and on fire. We can't jump."

"Oh well," I said. "Not like we were going anywhere anyway. Here we make our stand."

"So say we all," Sokolov said quietly.

I looked at the damage control panel as status reports filtered in. Valkyrie was mostly red with a few splotches of yellow left. My battlestar was missing most of her ventral gun batteries and the VLS launch tubes were trapped shut because of jammed doors. One of the four main plasma thrusters was out and needed repairs. We'd lost forty-three people with another hundred wounded.

I felt resigned to fate at this point. We were trapped in this solar system, limping and heavily wounded. The 13th Tribe war fleet was taking up a defensive formation around us. The cylon fleet was regrouping and no doubt preparing for an all out assault on us. We would not survive the attack. The cylons had a tonnage advantage and outgunned us.

I prayed, or rather closed my eyes and thought really hard and loud and hoped someone was listening.

 _Lords of Kobol. Thor. I need some help here. I'm out of options and my people are going to die. Could something miracle-like happen now? Like Roslin deciding to follow despite all the reasons that'd be a bad idea? Or some fleet of 13th Tribe ships jumping in to help?_

"DRADIS contact!" Lt. Burton announced.

"Tell me it's something friendly," I sighed.

"Three baseships just jumped in, sir," Burton replied. "Sorry, sir."

I clenched my jaw and crossed my arms. Seems I'd run out of miracles.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22: Earthfall**

The battlestar _Pegasus_ burst into existence in a corona of light. The massive colonial warship, the last of her kind in the whole universe, flew through the void with unearned grace and speed for such a leviathan vessel. Combat Air Patrol vipers shot out of her launch bays and assumed patrol duties. Their DRADIS arrays repeated the same thing that the main sensor array on the _Pegasus_ said.

"Jump complete!" Lt. Hoshi called out. "Getting light interference from jamming but nothing we can't handle."

"What are the long range sensors telling us?" Commander Helena Cain asked.

"Long range scopes show one planet in the habitable zone," Colonel Jurgen Belzen reported. "Lots of debris and jamming clouding our eyes."

"Where is the _Valkyrie_?" Commander Cain asked.

"I'm picking up a signal," Lt. Hoshi said. "Colonial transponder. It's the _Valkyrie_! She's surrounded by other ships. No Cylon transponders though, so maybe they're 13th Tribe ships?"

Cain said, "Open up the Wireless and hail the Admiral."

A minute of pregnant silence passed as Lt. Hoshi attempted to raise the _Valkyrie_. No response. Cain was starting to get a bad feeling about this when Hoshi spoke up.

"Sir," said the young lieutenant," I can't raise the Valkyrie, but I am getting a signal on the emergency frequency. It's the auto-distress beacon."

Colonel Belzen, who had been speaking to Ensign Davis, suddenly spoke up. "Commander, you should see this."

The main DRADIS display was replaced with a picture feed from the long-ranged telescopes. It was the wrecked hull of the _Valkyrie_ , broken in two with fires raging in the interior. She was surrounded by the wreckage of Cylon ships and a small fleet of 13th Tribe ships and shuttles.

Two months later, Commander Cain stood with Admiral William Adama and President Wallace Gray in a newly commissioned cemetery. Standing with them, wearing a cast around his left arm, was Space Marshal Bjorn Bolforskin of the Terran Space Force and Prime Minister Freyja Torskin of the Terran Federation. The five of them stood in the center of the cemetery, facing the statue that dominated the field the cemetery was built upon. It carried the visage of the man who had once served as Fleet Admiral and Commander of the battlestar _Valkyrie_. The man stood tall and looked forward into the distance with a steely glint in his eyes. It was missing the slight hunch in the shoulders the real Admiral had once carried and the slightly nervous expression, as well as the heavy bags that were eternally under his eyes.

"Thank you," President Gray said to the Prime Minister. "You don't know what this means to our people."

"It's us who should be thanking you, Mister President," Prime Minister Torskin said. Their conversation was made possible by a small device created by the Cylon defector known as Simon that sat on their shoulders, translating Caprican to Terran and back. "Without his sacrifice I don't think any of us would be standing here."

A sad silence held over the group as they beheld the statue of Admiral Aleksander Wolfkill.

"It's not over yet," Commander Cain said. "The Cylons are still out there. They won't give up until we're dead."

"Maybe," Admiral Adama said, "but at least we can stop running."

"They won't get us like they did two months ago," Space Marshal Bolforskin declared. "Next time they jump in-system we'll drown them in nukes and fighters."

"So say we all," Adama said. He was the first to leave. The rest of the party continued leaving until only Commander Helena Cain was left.

"I don't know if you can hear me," Cain said, "but you should know it paid off. The Thirteenth Tribe welcomed up with mostly open arms. We've got a long way to go but we're not on the run anymore. Your heroic last stand saved the terrans. We got about thirty percent of your crew off the wreckage of the _Valkyrie_."

Cain sighed and then said, "For what it's worth, I wasn't sold on the idea of you being Admiral until I heard what you did to save the Thirteenth Tribe. They're probably going to name a few schools after you for that. If I was the child having kind I'd probably name my firstborn after you. As is you'll just have to settle for the schools. Rest easy, Admiral. We'll take it from here."


End file.
